Target Audience

Identify your target audience’s demographics, interests, and pain points to create a more targeted content strategy.

Content Strategy: Identifying Your Target Audience

Identifying your target audience’s demographics, interests, and pain points helps to create a more targeted content strategy.

Identify Your Target AudienceUnderstanding your target audience is crucial for developing a successful content strategy and creating content that speaks directly to your audience’s needs and desires.

In this section, we expand on our lesson on how to create a content strategy by providing additional information, resources, and tools to help you identify your target audience’s demographics, interests, and pain points, describe the potential downsides of using these methods, and look at ways to segment your audience to improve your results.

Researching Your Target Audience

How do you go about identifying the demographics, interests, and pain points of your target audience?

First, let’s understand what we’re looking for:

1. Target Audience Demographics

Demographics relates to a market or sector of the population.

Having access to demographic data is essential for all businesses.

By collecting and analyzing demographic data using the resources and tools listed further below, you can gain valuable insights into the characteristics and preferences of your target audience, and tailor your products, services, and content strategy to better meet the needs of your customers.

There are several key demographics that can help you identify and better understand your target audience:

  • Age: The age range of your target audience can affect the language, messaging, and design of your marketing materials.
  • Gender: Understanding the gender distribution of your audience can help inform the tone and imagery you use in your marketing.
  • Income: Knowing the income level of your audience can help you understand their purchasing power and tailor your marketing messages accordingly.
  • Education: The level of education of your target audience can affect how they process information, so it can be helpful to know their education level when crafting marketing messages.
  • Occupation: Knowing the occupations of your target audience can help you understand their interests and needs, as well as their work schedule and lifestyle.
  • Geography: The location of your target audience can affect their cultural background, climate, and other factors that can shape the product or service you offer.
  • Family Structure: Knowing whether your target audience is made up of singles, couples, or families with children can help you understand their needs and preferences.
  • Lifestyle: Understanding the lifestyle of your target audience can help you identify their interests, hobbies, and values, which can inform your marketing messages and branding.
  • Psychographics: Audience’s personality, values, attitudes, interests, and lifestyles can also play a role. They can be segmented as Innovators, Early Adopters, Early Majority, Late Majority, and Laggards.

You may find that some of these factors are more relevant to your business than others. The important thing is to gather as much information as you can about your target audience so that you can create effective marketing strategies.

2. Target Audience Interests

Understanding your target audience’s interests and hobbies can help you create messaging and advertising content to fit their preferences and resonate with your audience, keep them engaged longer with your business or website, and create a more personalized approach to your business or product to increase the chances of attracting new customers and retaining existing ones.

Identifying the interests and hobbies of your target audience requires knowing the answer to questions like:

  • What do they like to do in their free time?
  • What are they interested in learning more about?

Here are some examples of questions you can ask to uncover answers to the above:

  • “What are some of your favorite hobbies or activities outside of work?”
  • “What are some of the books, movies, or TV shows you enjoy?”
  • “What are some of the websites or blogs you like to visit?”
  • “What kind of music do you like to listen to?”
  • “What kind of events or activities do you like to attend?”
  • “What kind of sports or fitness activities are you interested in?”
  • “What kind of hobbies or activities do you enjoy with your family?”
  • “What are some of your favorite travel destinations or dream vacation spots?”
  • “What are some of the volunteer or community activities you’re involved in?”
  • “What are some of the causes or social issues that you care about?”

There may be some specific interests and hobbies that are more relevant to your business or industry than others, so use your own judgment when asking questions.

Also, keep in mind that maintaining a neutral and respectful tone encourages people to share information about themselves.

3. Target Audience Pain Points

In addition to understanding your audience’s demographics and interests, it’s important to understand the challenges and frustrations that your target audience is facing.

What problems do they face in their daily lives? What problems are they trying to solve? How can your product or service help to address these pain points?

By understanding your audience’s pain points, you can tailor your content strategy and your marketing and advertising messages to address their specific needs, desires, and concerns.

There are many questions you can ask potential customers to identify their pain points. Some examples include:

  • “Can you tell me about the challenges you’re currently facing in [specific industry or area]?”
  • “How does [specific problem or task] currently impact your business or daily routine?”
  • “What are some of the biggest obstacles you encounter when trying to achieve [specific goal]?”
  • “What’s the biggest frustration you have with [specific product or service currently being used]?”
  • “How do you currently handle [specific problem or task] and are you satisfied with the results?”
  • “What are the most time-consuming aspects of [specific process or job function] for you?”
  • “What are some of the key metrics you track to measure success in [specific area], and how do you feel they are currently performing?”
  • “Can you walk me through the process you currently use for [specific task or problem], and where do you feel it could be improved?”
  • “What are the most important aspects of a solution for [specific problem], and how does your current approach measure up in those areas?”
  • “How does [specific pain point] affect your customer satisfaction/retention?”

It’s important to ask these questions in a conversational and non-threatening manner and to avoid leading questions. Also, it’s a good idea to ask follow-up questions to gather more details and context and be willing to listen actively.

4. Gather Data About Your Audience

Now that you understand what you are looking for, the next step is to gather as much data as you can about your target audience.

Here is a list of tools and resources that will help you identify the demographics, interests, and pain points of your target audience:

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a free tool that can provide insights into the demographics, interests, and behavior of your website visitors.

By integrating Google Analytics into your website, you can see where your visitors are coming from, what pages they are visiting, and how long they are staying on your site. You can also see what devices they are using and what their interests are based on their search history.

This information can be extremely useful for understanding the needs and pain points of your target audience.

However, keep in mind that while Google Analytics can provide a wealth of data about your website visitors, it only tracks traffic to a specific website, and therefore only captures data from individuals who visit that website.

In other words, Google Analytics may not capture information about users who do not visit your site. It may also be limited in terms of the depth of information it provides about individual users, so the data collected by Google Analytics may not be representative of your entire target audience.

Social Media Analytics

Most social media platforms have their own analytics tools that allow you to see who is engaging with your content and what their interests are.

For example, Facebook Insights allows you to see the demographics of your page followers, as well as what types of content they are most interested in.

While social media analytics tools can provide insights into the demographics and interests of your followers and this can help you tailor your social media strategy to better meet the needs of your target audience, they may not accurately represent the broader population you are targeting.

This is because social media analytics tools only track activity and engagement on a specific social media platform, and therefore only capture data from individuals who use that platform.

Additionally, these tools may not capture the full range of conversations and interactions happening on social media, particularly if they are not directly related to your brand, or provide detailed information about the demographics of users. This makes it difficult to accurately represent the demographics of your target audience.

More information: Social Media Tools

Customer Surveys

Surveying your customers directly can give you valuable insights into their demographics, interests, and pain points.

By asking targeted questions and gathering feedback, you can get a better understanding of what your customers need and how you can address their pain points.

There are many online survey tools available that allow you to create and distribute surveys to your customers.

We provide a list in this lesson: Customer Surveys

Keep in mind that while customer surveys can be a useful tool for collecting and analyzing customer feedback, there are a few potential downsides to consider.

One potential downside is that customer surveys may not accurately represent the demographics, interests, and pain points of your entire target audience.

This is because surveys may be subject to biases such as self-selection (i.e., only certain types of customers may choose to participate) and social desirability (i.e., respondents may give answers they think are more acceptable rather than their true opinions), and only capture data from individuals who choose to participate.

In addition, customer surveys can be time-consuming and costly to administer, and may not yield a high response rate.

Market Research Firms

Market research firms are companies that specialize in conducting market research and can provide detailed insights into the demographics, interests, and pain points of your target audience.

These firms often have access to a wide range of data sources and can conduct in-depth surveys and focus groups to gather information.

Hiring a market research firm can be a useful option if you don’t have the time or resources to conduct research on your own.

Market research firms can provide valuable insights into the demographics, interests, and pain points of a target audience, but there are a few potential downsides to consider.

One potential downside is that the data collected by market research firms may be expensive to access, which may not be feasible for all businesses.

In addition, market research firms may not be able to provide real-time data or have access to the most up-to-date or comprehensive data, which can be a limitation for businesses looking to make timely decisions.

Online Focus Groups

Online focus groups can be a useful way to gather insights from a targeted group of people.

Participants are typically recruited based on specific demographics or interests, and they are asked to participate in discussions or complete tasks related to a particular product or service.

Online focus groups can be a useful tool for gathering feedback and valuable insights into the needs and pain points of your target audience, but there are a few potential downsides to consider.

One potential downside is that online focus groups only capture data from individuals who choose to participate, and therefore may not accurately represent the demographics, interests, and pain points of your entire target audience. In addition, online focus groups can be time-consuming and costly to administer, may not yield a high response rate, and may be subject to biases such as groupthink.

Interviews With Industry Experts

Talking to people who are knowledgeable about your industry can give you insights into the needs and pain points of your target audience.

These experts may be able to provide valuable perspectives on current trends and challenges in the industry, and they may be able to recommend solutions to common pain points.

Interviews with industry experts can provide valuable insights into the demographics, interests, and pain points of a target audience, but there are a few potential downsides to consider.

One potential downside is that interviews with industry experts only capture data from a small number of individuals, therefore, their perspectives may be limited to their own experiences and may not represent the broader market.

In addition, interviews with industry experts can be time-consuming and costly to conduct, and may not yield a high response rate.

If you find that surveys are too expensive to glean the information you need, conducting qualitative interviews with subject matter experts that have a deep understanding of your target audience can provide you with similar great insights.

Customer Feedback And Review Platforms

Customer feedback and review platforms allow you to see what customers are saying about your product or service, which can give you insights into their needs and pain points.

Review sites offer customers the opportunity to leave feedback about their experiences. Reading through these reviews and analyzing the data can give you a sense of what people like and dislike about your product or service, the types of products and services customers are looking for, as well as their preferred methods of communication and interaction with a business.

By understanding these preferences, you can gain valuable insights into your customers and tailor your marketing efforts, product development, customer experiences, and content creation efforts to better meet their needs and focus on activities that lead to increased satisfaction and loyalty.

One of the primary benefits of using customer feedback and review platforms is that they provide a wealth of information about the demographics of your target audience. This can include information about age, gender, location, and other characteristics that can be useful for targeting specific groups of customers.

In addition to demographic information, customer feedback and review platforms can also provide insights into the interests and preferences of your target audience.

For example, if a large percentage of your customers are interested in a particular type of product or service, this can be a valuable piece of information to consider when developing new products or marketing campaigns.

Conversely, customers often leave reviews and feedback to highlight issues or problems they have experienced with a business or product. By collecting and analyzing this feedback, you can identify common problems or frustrations that your customers are experiencing, and use this information to improve your products, services, and your content, leading to improved overall customer experience and increased customer satisfaction.

Here are some customer feedback and review platforms that you can use to gather insights from your customers:

  • Yelp: This review platform allows customers to leave feedback about their experiences with local businesses. Yelp is particularly popular for restaurants, but it also covers a wide range of businesses.
  • Amazon: The e-commerce giant allows customers to leave feedback about the products they have purchased on their platform. Amazon reviews are an important factor for many customers when deciding whether to make a purchase.
  • Google Business Profile: This platform allows businesses to manage their online presence on Google, including their Google Maps listing and Google Reviews. Google Business allows customers to leave reviews about their experiences with a business. Researching your (and your competitor’s) customer feedback can provide valuable insights about your target audience’s demographics, needs, and pain points.
  • TripAdvisor: This travel review platform allows customers to leave feedback about their experiences with hotels, restaurants, and other travel-related businesses. TripAdvisor is a popular resource for travelers when researching their options.
  • Trustpilot: This review platform allows customers to leave feedback about their experiences with a wide range of businesses. Trustpilot covers a wide range of industries and is used by businesses around the world.
  • G2: This review platform allows customers to leave feedback about their experiences with software and other business products. G2 is a popular resource for businesses looking to research and compare different products.
  • Capterra: This review platform allows customers to leave feedback about their experiences with software and other business products. Capterra covers a wide range of industries and is used by businesses around the world.
  • Glassdoor: This review platform allows employees to leave feedback about their experiences with their employers. Glassdoor is a popular resource for job seekers looking to research potential employers.
  • TrustRadius: This review platform allows customers to leave feedback about their experiences with software and other business products. TrustRadius covers a wide range of industries and is used by businesses around the world.
  • Customer Lobby: This review platform allows customers to leave feedback about their experiences with local businesses. Customer Lobby is particularly popular for service-based businesses, such as home service providers.

Keep in mind that while customer feedback and review platforms can be valuable sources of information for understanding your target audience, there are a few potential downsides to consider.

One potential downside is that they only capture data from individuals who choose to leave a review or feedback and therefore may not accurately represent the demographics, interests, and pain points of your entire target audience.

In addition, they may be subject to biases such as the “online disinhibition effect” (i.e., people may be more likely to leave negative reviews online than they would in person).

Industry Reports And Market Research Studies

Industry reports and market research studies can also provide valuable information about your target audience’s demographics, interests, and pain points.

Many industry associations and research firms publish reports on market trends and consumer behavior, and these reports can be a useful source of information for understanding your target audience.

Some of the potential downsides of using industry reports and market research studies to identify the demographics, interests, and pain points of your target audience include:

  • Cost: Some industry reports and market research studies can be quite expensive, and if you’re a small business or startup, this may not be a feasible option for you.
  • Time: Conducting a thorough market research study can take a significant amount of time, and if you’re on a tight deadline, you may not be able to wait for the results.
  • Relevance: Not all industry reports and market research studies will be relevant to your specific product or service and may not always be up-to-date or comprehensive, so you’ll need to carefully evaluate whether the information you’re getting is relevant to your target audience.

Demographic Data Sources

There are many online resources that can provide demographic data on different groups of people, including the age, gender, income, and education level of different population groups, which can be useful for targeting your marketing and content creation efforts.

Here are some sources of demographic data that you can use to gather information about different groups of people:

  • U.S. Census Bureau: The official source of demographic data for the United States. The Census Bureau conducts a census every 10 years and also publishes data from ongoing surveys and censuses on a range of topics, including age, gender, race, education, and income.
  • World Bank: This organization collects and publishes data on a wide range of topics, including demographics, for countries around the world.
  • United Nations: The United Nations publishes data on a wide range of topics, including demographics, for countries around the world.
  • Eurostat: The statistical office of the European Union, and it publishes data on a wide range of topics, including demographics, for countries in the EU.
  • Statistics Canada: The official source of statistical data for Canada, and it publishes data on a wide range of topics, including demographics.
  • Australian Bureau of Statistics: The official source of statistical data for Australia, and it publishes data on a wide range of topics, including demographics.
  • Office for National Statistics: The official source of statistical data for the United Kingdom, and it publishes data on a wide range of topics, including demographics.
  • Nielsen: This market research company collects and publishes data on a wide range of topics, including demographics, for countries around the world.
  • Pew Research Center: This research organization conducts polls and studies on a wide range of topics, including demographics.
  • Gallup: This research company conducts polls and studies on a wide range of topics, including demographics.

Demographic data sources can also be a valuable resource, but there are a few potential downsides to keep in mind:

  • Limited Information: Demographic data sources typically provide basic information such as age, gender, income, and location, but may not provide more detailed information about their interests, pain points, and lifestyles or be granular enough to be relevant to your specific target audience.
  • Data Quality: The quality of the data can vary depending on the source, so it’s important to make sure that you’re using a reputable source.
  • Data Privacy: Demographic data sources can raise privacy concerns as the data source may not be transparent about how the data was collected and if proper consent was obtained from the individual.

Online Forums And Communities

Participating in online forums or communities related to your industry can give you valuable insights into the needs and pain points of your target audience.

These forums and communities can be a great place to ask questions, share information, and get feedback from people who are interested in your industry

Here are some potential downsides to keep in mind when using online forums and communities to connect with your target audience and learn more about their interests and pain points:

  • Self-Selection Bias: People who participate in online forums and communities tend to be self-selected, meaning that they may not be representative of the larger population of your target audience and may be subject to biases such as groupthink.
  • Noise: Online forums and communities can be very noisy, with lots of different conversations and topics happening at the same time. It can be difficult to extract meaningful information from all of the noise.
  • Lack of Control: Since online forums and communities are not controlled by you, the administrator, or the company, it can be difficult to control the message and ensure that the information you’re getting is accurate.

Additional Methods

Additional tools and methods to identify key target audience information include:

  • Social media conversations – Knowing where your audience likes to engage (e.g. YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, Reddit, etc.) will help you better understand them and their needs.
  • Competitor analysis – Instead of simply copying what your competitors are doing, look for any opportunities they are missing in terms of what your audience is asking for, such as content formats they are or are not using, and what areas they are not covering.

5. Segment Your Audience

Once you have a good understanding of your audience, you may find that you have multiple segments within your larger target audience.

For example, you might have one group of people who are interested in one thing, and another group that’s interested in something else.

By segmenting your audience, you can create more targeted and effective content to address people who have similar needs, values, or characteristics.

There are different kinds of market segments you can create to try and better understand your target audience. Below are the four main methods of market segmentation. You can also create more niche segments within the types below.

Typically, audiences can be segmented into four main methods of market segmentation (and you can create more niche segments within these):

Socio-demographic

This is one of the most common forms of segmentation, where you split up audiences based on observable, people-based differences like:

    • Sex
    • Age
    • Education
    • Occupation
    • Income
    • Marital status
    • Family size
    • Ethnicity/language
    • Religion

Demographic information is relatively easily accessible and low-cost to obtain.

Geographic

Segmenting your audience based on their location can help you better understand their needs and enable you to create content targeted to the characteristics of the area they live in, like:

  • Country, state, county, and zip code.
  • Climate
  • Population density
  • Urban, suburban or rural areas

Geographical segmentation can impact your content strategy in ways like creating content to address regional differences (e.g. language, interests, norms, and other attributes), different needs of people in different regions (e.g. people living in cold or warm climates, or people who follow different national sports, such as baseball in the US vs cricket in India), crafting location-specific ads and articles (e.g. for a small local business vs a company with a global presence), and so on.

Behavioral

Behavioral segmentation relates directly to how people interact with your brand or products.

You segment your audience based on behaviors like:

  • Benefits sought: What need a customer is aiming to meet or satisfy by purchasing a product?
  • Online shopping habits: Knowing a user’s online shopping habits on various sites can provide valuable insights into how to create content that will increase the likelihood of them shopping on your website.
  • Actions taken on a website: Tracking actions users take across your digital properties can help you better understand their interactions. For example, how long are they staying on your site? What types of content are they clicking on? Do they read your content (e.g. articles) through to the end?
  • Usage rate: Knowing whether someone is a heavy user, medium user, light user, or a non-user of your products lets you categorize and customize your content and messaging based on their usage rate.
  • Loyalty: You can categorize customers based on brand loyalty and tailor your content or marketing to how loyal they are to your brand.

Behavioral data is useful as it allows you to market more effectively to them and can be collected through various sources, including analytic tools, website cookies, purchase data in your customer relationship management software (CRM), third-party datasets, etc.

Psychographic

Psychographic segmentation is similar to demographic segmentation but deals with attributes that are harder to observe, such as mental and emotional characteristics and motives.

For example:

  • Core beliefs and values
  • Personality traits
  • Attitudes, opinions, and preferences
  • Interests, activities, and lifestyles

Psychographic segmentation gives you insight into why people may decide to purchase or not purchase your product, click on your ad and engage with you, or ignore your content.

For example, let’s say you sell products for the home, survey a group of people in a similar demographic, and find that some members of your audience are very enthusiastic about their pets.

You could now target your content with this information and emphasize a pet-friendly home environment.

Other audience segmentation methods include classifying customers based on their “transactional worth”, i.e. how much they’re likely to spend on products, how many purchases they make, how often they purchase, and the value of the items purchased (value segmentation), characteristics of businesses such as their industry, revenue, number of employees and location (firmographic segmentation), generational segmentation (e.g. Gen Z, Millenials, Generation X, Baby Boomers, etc), lifestage segmentation (grouping people based on which stage of their life they are at), or seasonal segmentation (users who buy different items at different times of the year, such as major holidays).

Segmenting your audience has many benefits when developing a content strategy, including improving the focus of your business resources for more targeted content creation, improving the performance of your content marketing campaigns,  identifying new audience groups to target with your content, and informing decisions related to other areas, like content distribution.

6. Create User Personas

User Persona
User Persona – Generated by Smaply. Source: Smaply

A user persona is a fictional representation of your ideal customer based on data and research about your target audience.

User personas provide a detailed and specific picture of who your target audience is, what their needs and goals are, how they think and behave, and allow you to address your (visualized or imagined) ideal customer when creating your content.

Creating a user persona is an important step in developing your content strategy because it allows your business to focus its efforts on the people who are most likely to be interested in your products or services and create more effective content marketing campaigns, ultimately reaching and satisfying your target audience.

Basically, a user persona lets you have a picture in your mind of who you are addressing when you create your content.

You can then speak to that person’s demographics, their interests, and their pain points in a more relatable way.

Some of the key benefits of creating user personas include:

  • Improving the effectiveness of marketing campaigns by targeting the right audience.
  • Improving the design of products and services by understanding the needs of the target audience.
  • Reducing the cost of marketing by focusing efforts on the most promising segments of the market.
  • Increased understanding of the target audience by helping to predict how they will react to new products, changes to existing products, or new marketing campaigns.

Free Online User Persona Generators

There are many free online user persona generators you can use that let you create a persona by providing information about demographics, behavior, motivation, and goals. Many also allow you to upload images to personalize the persona, import and export personas in CSV format, and download the persona as a PDF.

These free online user persona generators listed below offer an easy and quick way to create user personas for your business:

  • Hubspot – Hubspot’s “Make My Persona” tools and persona template allow you to create unlimited detailed buyer personas by providing information about demographics, behavior patterns, pain points, and goals. You can also download the personas as a PDF.
  • Xtensio – A user-friendly platform that allows you to create interactive and shareable personas. You can customize the template and add information such as demographics, goals, pain points, and quotes.
  • UXPressia – A feature-rich online persona generator tool that lets you create multiple user personas with name and photo generator, built-in presentation mode, data integration, and live collaboration features.
  • Userforge – A simple platform that guides you through the process of creating a persona with a series of questions about the target audience. You can also create multiple personas and export them as PDFs.
  • Smaply – The Smaply persona editor lets you create and customize persona templates for different target groups.
  • Buyer Persona Institute – A comprehensive tool that allows you to create a buyer persona by answering a series of questions about your target audience. It also includes resources for persona research and best practices.
  • EvenDigit – EvenDigit is a digital marketing agency that have created its own free-to-use online persona generator tool.
  • PersonaGenerator – This simple free online persona generator tool was built by Mobility Labs for their clients. Once you have created your persona, you can share it using the links in the right sidebar. You don’t need to create an account as long as you save your links (you can also have your links emailed so you won’t lose them).

7. Understand Your Customer’s Buyer Journey

Understanding the process that your target audience goes through before making a purchase is also very important for creating an effective content strategy.

We cover this in more detail in this lesson: Understanding Your Customer’s Buyer Journey

Audience Research Checklist

  • Define the goals and objectives of your audience research: Clearly define the goals and objectives of the audience research, such as understanding the demographics, interests, and pain points of your target audience.
  • Identify key audience segments: Identify key audience segments to focus the research on, such as age, gender, location, and interests.
  • Gather existing data: Gather existing data on your audience, such as website analytics and customer feedback.
  • Conduct surveys: Conduct surveys to gather more in-depth information on the demographics, interests, and pain points of your target audience.
  • Interview customers: Conduct interviews with customers to gain deeper insights into their needs and behaviors.
  • Analyze social media data: Analyze social media data to understand the demographics, interests, and pain points of your target audience.
  • Monitor online communities: Monitor online communities and forums related to your industry to understand the conversations and interests of your target audience.
  • Create personas: Create personas that represent your target audience segments, including demographic information, interests, and pain points.
  • Evaluate the data: Evaluate the data gathered from all the research methods, and use it to identify patterns and insights.
  • Use the insights: Use the insights gathered from the audience research to inform your content, product, and marketing strategies.
  • Continuously monitor and update: Continuously monitor and update the audience research to keep it relevant and actionable.

Identify Your Target Audience And Improve Your Content Strategy

By identifying key audience characteristics such as demographics, interests, and pain points, you can create content that speaks directly to their needs, desires, and motivations and ultimately drive more success for your business.

There are many tools and resources you can use to identify the demographics, interests, and pain points of your target audience.

These tools and resources can be valuable but, it’s important to be aware of their potential downsides and to use them in conjunction with other methods to gather information about your target audience.

It’s important to take the time to gather data, identify interests and pain points, and segment your audience in order to create a targeted and effective content strategy.

Creating user personas and your customer’s buyer journey is also an important step in your content strategy, as it provides a valuable tool to help your business better understand its target audience.

To apply what you have learned in this section, see our lesson on how to create a content strategy.

Target Audience – FAQs

Here are frequently asked questions about understanding your target audience:

What is a target audience?

A target audience is a specific group of people identified as the intended recipient of a product, service, or marketing message. These groups are defined by shared characteristics like demographics, interests, and behaviors.

How do I identify my target audience?

Identify your target audience through market research, which includes analyzing existing customer data, conducting surveys and interviews, and using competitive analysis to understand who engages with similar products or services.

Why is it important to understand my target audience?

Understanding your target audience helps tailor your marketing efforts to those most likely to purchase your product or service, improving ROI and engagement rates by addressing specific needs and preferences.

What factors should I consider when targeting an audience?

Consider factors such as age, location, gender, income level, education, occupation, and psychographics like values, hobbies, and lifestyle. These factors help refine marketing strategies and content creation.

How can I use digital tools to learn more about my target audience?

Utilize digital analytics tools, social media insights, and SEO data to gather information on your audience’s online behavior, preferences, and engagement patterns. This data informs content creation and campaign strategies.

What type of media should I use to engage my target audience?

Choose media types based on your audience’s preferences and behaviors. This could range from traditional media like print and TV to digital formats like social media, blogs, or videos, depending on where your audience spends their time.

How frequently should I revise my understanding of the target audience?

Regularly update your understanding of the target audience as market conditions, consumer behavior, and technologies evolve. Conduct ongoing research and monitor analytics to keep your strategies relevant and effective.

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Image: Buyer Persona

Customer Surveys

Use feedback from customer surveys to create a more targeted content strategy and improve your content creation.

Use Customer Surveys In Your Content Strategy

Use feedback from customer surveys to create a more targeted content strategy and improve your content creation.

Customer SurveysCustomer surveys can help you create a content strategy that is more in line with the needs and preferences of your target audience, which can help you create content that is more likely to be consumed and shared.

In this section, we will discuss the role and benefits of customer surveys in creating a content strategy, including tips for using them effectively, useful customer survey tools, and potential downsides to consider.

Why Use Customer Surveys In Your Content Strategy

Customer surveys can be a useful tool for creating a content strategy because they allow you to gather direct feedback from your target audience about what types of content they find most valuable.

This can help you understand what topics and formats your audience is most interested in, which can inform your content creation decisions.

For example, if you run a customer survey and find that a large portion of your audience is interested in learning about a particular topic, you might consider creating more content around that topic.

Alternatively, if you find that your audience is not particularly interested in a certain type of content, you may want to consider focusing on other topics instead.

Overall, customer surveys can help you create a content strategy that is more in line with the needs and preferences of your target audience, which can help you create content that is more likely to be consumed and shared.

Tips For Using Customer Surveys

Here are some tips for using customer surveys to gather valuable insights from your customers and use that information to inform your content strategy and other business decisions:

  • Determine your survey goals: Before you start creating your survey, it’s important to have a clear idea of what you hope to learn from your customers. This will help you create a survey that is focused and effective.
  • Choose the right survey format: There are many different types of surveys you can use, including online surveys, phone surveys, and in-person surveys. Choose the format that is most appropriate for your business and your audience.
  • Keep it short and focused: No one likes to take a long, tedious survey. Keep your survey short and focused to maximize the number of responses you receive.
  • Use open-ended questions: In addition to multiple choice and rating scale questions, consider including open-ended questions that allow your customers to provide more detailed feedback.
  • Analyze the results: Once you have collected your survey responses, it’s important to carefully analyze the data to understand what your customers are saying. Look for patterns and trends in the responses, and use this information to inform your content strategy.

Customer Survey Example

Here is an example of a customer survey that could be used to inform a content strategy:

How often do you visit our website?

    • Rarely
    • Occasionally
    • Monthly
    • Weekly
    • Daily

How would you describe the content on our website?

    • Boring
    • Okay
    • Interesting
    • Very interesting

What topics would you like to see more content written about on our website? (Please select all that apply)

    • Product reviews
    • Industry news
    • Tips and tricks
    • Company updates
    • Other (please specify)

What types of content do you prefer on our website? (Please select all that apply)

    • Articles
    • Videos
    • Infographics
    • Podcasts
    • Other (please specify)

How likely are you to share content from our website with your friends and family?

    • Very unlikely
    • Unlikely
    • Neutral
    • Likely
    • Very likely

Customer Survey Tools

There are many online survey tools available that allow you to create and distribute surveys to your customers.

Most of the tools listed below provide benefits and advantages like:

  • Customizable design: The tool allows businesses to create surveys with a professional and customized look and feel.
  • Multiple question types: The tool supports a variety of question types, including multiple-choice, rating scales, and open-ended questions, allowing businesses to gather a wide range of data from their customers.
  • Data analysis tools: The tool provides a range of data analysis tools, including charts, graphs, and pivot tables, to help businesses analyze and interpret their survey data.
  • Integration with other tools: The tool can be easily integrated with a variety of other tools, including CRM systems, email marketing software, and social media platforms, making it easy to gather and analyze survey data.
  • Advanced features: The tool offers a range of advanced features, including the ability to add images, videos, and other media to surveys, and to create surveys in multiple languages.
  • Mobile-friendly: The tool is mobile-friendly, making it easy for respondents to complete surveys on their smartphones or tablets.
  • Customer support: The tool provides excellent customer support, with a range of resources and support options available to help users get the most out of the platform.

Here are some powerful and flexible customer survey platforms that you can use to gather valuable insights from your customers:

SurveyMonkey

Customer Surveys Tool - SurveyMonkey
SurveyMonkey lets you measure and undertand customer feedback.

SurveyMonkey is a popular survey tool that allows you to create, distribute, and analyze surveys. SurveyMonkey offers a range of customization options and can be used to gather a wide variety of data from customers.

SurveyMonkey - Customer Survey Template
SurveyMonkey – Customer Survey Template

SurveyMonkey has a user-friendly interface and offers a variety of templates and customization options, including custom branding options, allowing you to create surveys that match your brand’s aesthetic and messaging.

SurveyMonkey also has a large user base, which means you can reach a large number of potential respondents when distributing surveys.

More info: SurveyMonkey

Forminator

Forminator
Forminator

Forminator is a free WordPress plugin that allows you to create and manage forms and customer surveys on your WordPress website to gather feedback and insights from your audience.

To use Forminator to create customer surveys, follow these steps:

  1. Install and activate the Forminator plugin on your WordPress website.
  2. Create a new survey form using the Forminator form builder.
  3. Add questions to the survey form using the various question types available in Forminator, including multiple-choice, rating scales, and open-ended questions.
  4. Customize the look and feel of the survey form using the built-in customization options in Forminator.
  5. Publish the survey form on your website or share it with customers through other channels, such as email or social media.
  6. Analyze the survey results using the data analysis tools provided by Forminator.

More info: Forminator

Google Forms

Google Forms
Google Forms

Google Forms is a free online survey tool from Google that allows you to create and distribute surveys to gather data from customers and other stakeholders.

Google Forms can be easily integrated with other Google tools, such as Google Sheets and Google Drive, making it easy to manage and analyze survey data.

Overall, Google Forms is a reliable and convenient tool that is easy to use and integrates seamlessly with other Google tools, such as Sheets and Docs.

More info: Google Forms

Typeform

Customer Surveys Tool - Typeform
Typeform makes people-friendly forms and surveys.

Typeform is a survey tool that allows you to create visually appealing surveys with a range of customization options.

Typeform is designed to be user-friendly and can be used to gather a wide range of data from customers.

More info: Typeform

SurveySparrow

Customer Surveys Tool - SurveySparrow
SurveySparrow – an all-in-one omnichannel experience management platform.

SurveySparrow is a cloud-based customer survey and all-in-one omnichannel experience solution that enables businesses of all sizes to create engaging feedback surveys.

SurveySparrow lets you create engaging and conversational customer surveys and offers a range of customization options.

It also includes a centralized dashboard, allowing you to import and organize your contacts into custom lists based on job titles, locations, and age groups.

More info: SurveySparrow

SurveyPlanet

Customer Surveys Tool - SurveyPlanet
SurveyPlanet – Free online survey maker.

SurveyPlanet is a free and user-friendly online survey tool that allows you to create and distribute surveys with unlimited questions and responses to your customers.

You can create surveys for free or upgrade to a paid plan if you need advanced or enterprise-level features, including the ability to export and print survey results, use custom themes, question branching, survey results filtering, create white label surveys, run kiosk surveys, receive completion notifications, and more.

SurveyPlanet is a reliable and convenient tool that offers a range of customization options and integrations with other tools, such as Mailchimp and Salesforce.

More info: SurveyPlanet

SurveyLegend

Customer Surveys Tool - SurveyLegend
SurveyLegend lets you create professional customer surveys with no design or market research skills.

SurveyLegend lets you create visually appealing surveys with a range of customization options.

You can create custom, engaging text-based, media-based, or choice-based mobile-friendly surveys, forms, questionnaires, and polls on any device with the tool’s free, dynamic survey maker.

SurveyLegend lets you customize the look of your survey and display results with eye-catching and insightful graphics using drag and drop with no design or market research skills.

The free version limits you to 3 surveys, 6 pictures, no data export, 1 conditional logic, and includes ads and a watermark. If you need more advanced features and the ability to create unlimited surveys, export your data, advanced logic, and more, then consider upgrading to one of their paid plans.

More info: SurveyLegend

AskNicely

AskNicely
AskNicely

AskNicely lets you collect and act on customer feedback in real-time and get feedback via email, SMS, or web.

The tool lets you track any customer experience metric including NPS, 5-Star, or CSAT (see below), see customer experience trends broken down by location, branch, or individual, and make evidence-based decisions.

More info: AskNicely

Qualtrics

Qualtrics
Qualtrics – free survey maker

Qualtrics is a powerful survey tool that offers a wide range of features and customization options to collect feedback and understand your audience’s needs.

It provides a free survey tool with over 50 expert-designed pre-built survey templates for customer, employee, brand, product, and market research professionals (or create your own form from scratch).

Qualtrics is often used by many businesses and organizations to gather data from customers and employees.

More info: Qualtrics

Pointerpro

Pointerpro
Pointerpro

Pointerpro (formerly SurveyAnyplace) is a survey creation platform that lets you create your own online surveys with customized reports created automatically.

Pointerpro’s survey maker generates personalized PDF reports immediately upon completion of the survey.

More info: Pointerpro

Alchemer

Alchemer
Alchemer – Enterprise online survey software and tools.

Alchemer (formerly SurveyGizmo) is a comprehensive, flexible, and easy-to-setup-and-use survey tool and feedback software that offers a range of advanced features, such as logic branching and custom reports.

Alchemer is a good option for businesses that need to gather more in-depth data from customers using an enterprise solution covering everything from survey software to customer feedback management.

More info: Alchemer

Customer Experience Metrics

Many customer survey tools track customer experience metrics to measure and track the satisfaction of your customers.

These metrics help your business understand how well you are meeting the needs and expectations of your customers and identify areas for improvement.

Some common customer experience metrics include:

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a customer experience metric that measures the likelihood of a customer recommending a company’s products or services to others.

NPS is calculated based on responses to a single question: “On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our company to a friend or colleague?”

Customers are divided into three categories: promoters, passives, and detractors.

Customers who respond with a 9 or 10 are considered “promoters” and are most likely to recommend the company, while those who respond with a 7 or 8 are considered “passives,” and those who respond with a 0 to 6 are considered “detractors” and are the least likely to recommend your products or services to others.

The NPS is calculated by subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters.

NPS is a useful metric for businesses because it provides insight into the overall loyalty of your customer base.

5-Star rating

5-Star is a customer experience metric that measures the overall satisfaction of a customer with a company’s products or services.

Customers are typically asked to rate their satisfaction on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest rating.

This metric can be helpful because it provides your business with a simple and easy-to-understand measure of customer satisfaction.

Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)

CSAT is another measure of customer satisfaction. It is typically based on a scale of 1 to 5 and is often used to measure satisfaction with specific touchpoints, interactions, or experiences within the customer journey, such as a customer service call or a product purchase.

Customer Surveys – Potential Downsides

While customer surveys can be a useful tool for creating a content strategy, there are also some potential downsides to consider.

One potential downside is that customer surveys may not accurately represent the preferences of your entire audience. This is because surveys are often only completed by a small percentage of your total customer base, and the responses may not be representative of the larger group.

Another potential downside is that customer surveys can be time-consuming and resource-intensive to create and administer. This can be especially challenging for small businesses with limited time and resources.

Finally, it’s important to remember that customer preferences can change over time. This means that even if you use customer surveys to inform your content strategy, you may need to revisit your strategy periodically to ensure that it is still aligned with the needs and preferences of your target audience.

Overall, while customer surveys can be a useful tool for creating a content strategy, it’s important to use them in combination with other methods, such as analyzing website traffic data and monitoring social media engagement, to get a more complete picture of your audience’s needs and preferences.

Customer Surveys – FAQs

Here are frequently asked questions about customer surveys:

What is a customer survey?

A customer survey is a tool used by businesses to gather feedback from customers about their experiences, satisfaction levels, and preferences.

Why are customer surveys important?

Customer surveys provide valuable insights into customer satisfaction, preferences, and areas for improvement, helping businesses make informed decisions to enhance products and services.

What types of questions should be included in a customer survey?

Questions should cover various aspects such as overall satisfaction, specific product or service feedback, likelihood of recommending, and suggestions for improvement.

How frequently should customer surveys be conducted?

The frequency depends on the business and its goals. Regular surveys can provide ongoing feedback, but the timing should not overwhelm customers. Quarterly or bi-annual surveys are common.

What is Net Promoter Score (NPS) and why is it used in customer surveys?

NPS measures customer loyalty by asking how likely customers are to recommend a company to others. It’s a popular metric in customer surveys because it provides a simple yet powerful indication of customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Customer Surveys – Summary

Customer surveys are a popular and effective method for gathering feedback from customers and using it to inform a content strategy.

Surveying your customers directly can give you valuable insights into their demographics, interests, and pain points.

There are many online survey tools available that allow you to create and distribute surveys to your customers.

By asking targeted questions about topics, formats, and preferences, and gathering feedback, you can get a better understanding of what your customers need and how you can address their pain points to create content that resonates with your target audience and meets their needs.

When using customer surveys it’s important to measure and track the satisfaction of your customers using customer experience metrics. By regularly collecting and analyzing these metrics, you can identify areas for improvement and work to enhance the overall customer experience.

Finally, keep in mind that customer surveys have limitations, and it may be necessary to use other methods to get a complete understanding of audience preferences.

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Image: Survey Forms

Troubleshooting Your Content Strategy

Troubleshoot common problems that can affect your content strategy.

Troubleshooting Your Content Strategy

Learn about common problems that can affect your content strategy and simple solutions you can implement to overcome these.

Troubleshooting Your Content Strategy - Frustrated blogger

Content strategy is the planning, development, and management of content. It involves creating a clear plan for the types of content you will create, how it will be organized and stored, and how it will be promoted and distributed.

A well-executed content strategy is essential for engaging your audience, building trust, and helping your business achieve its goals.

However, there are many common problems that can negatively impact your content strategy. From not having a clear target audience to poor search engine optimization (SEO) to insufficient promotion and distribution of content, these issues can affect your content strategy and your ability to create and distribute content effectively.

In this article, we will explore common problems that can impact your content strategy and provide solutions for addressing them. By troubleshooting your content strategy, you can create and distribute content that resonates with your audience and helps you achieve your goals.

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This article is part of our Content Troubleshooting Guide where we help you identify and fix content-related problems in your business.

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Common Problems That Can Impact Your Content Strategy And Solutions

Has your business developed a content strategy yet?

If the answer is “no,” then see our lesson on how to develop a content strategy for your business.

If the answer is “yes,” then use the list below to identify and troubleshoot common problems that can affect your content strategy:

1. Not Setting Specific Goals And Objectives

Without clear goals, it is difficult to know what you are trying to achieve with your content or how to track your progress.

Solution: Set SMART goals and objectives

Setting specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals and objectives helps to guide your content creation efforts and measure their success.

By setting clear goals, you can focus your efforts on creating content that helps you achieve them and track your progress along the way.

2. Not Having A Clear Understanding Of Your Target Audience

Without a defined audience, it is difficult to create content that resonates with anyone and achieves the desired results.

Solution: Define your target audience and determine their needs and preferences

Having a clear understanding of who your target audience is and what their needs and preferences are is essential for creating effective content.

By taking the time to get to know your audience, you can create content that addresses their specific needs and interests, which can lead to higher engagement and better results.

3. Poor Organization And Storage Of Content

Having a well-organized system for storing and managing your content is crucial for maintaining efficiency and ensuring that your content is easily accessible.

Poor organization can lead to lost or misplaced content, which can be time-consuming and frustrating to deal with.

Solution: Use a CMS to organize and store your content

Using a content management system (CMS) can help you organize and store your content in a central location, making it easier to find and access.

A CMS can also help you manage multiple users, track changes to your content, and keep your content organized using tags and categories.

4. Lack Of High-Quality Content

Poor-quality content can turn off your audience and damage your reputation.

Solution: Create high-quality content that follows best practices and utilizes media

Creating high-quality content is essential for engaging your audience and building trust.

By following best practices and utilizing media such as images, videos, and infographics, you can create more engaging and effective content that resonates with your audience.

For additional information and help in this area, see these sections of the course:

5. Poor Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Poor SEO can make it difficult for people to discover your content, resulting in lower traffic and engagement.

Solution: Optimize your content for SEO by using keywords and following best practices

Optimizing your content for search engines is an important aspect of content strategy because it helps your content rank higher in search engine results.

By using relevant keywords and following SEO best practices, you can improve your search engine visibility and increase the chances of your content being seen by your target audience.

For additional information and help in this area, see this lesson: Content SEO.

6. Difficulty Creating A Cohesive Content Marketing Plan

Without a cohesive plan, your business may struggle to create content that aligns with your overall marketing goals.

Solution: Develop a content marketing plan that outlines your business’s goals, target audience, and the type of content that will be created.

Use this plan as a guide for all your content creation and marketing efforts.

7. Insufficient Promotion And Distribution Of Content

Without sufficient promotion, it can be challenging to get your content seen by the right people.

Solution: Promote your content through social media, email marketing, influencer marketing, and guest blogging

Promoting and distributing your content is crucial for reaching a wider audience and increasing engagement.

By utilizing social media, email marketing, influencer marketing, and guest blogging, you can reach a larger audience and get your content seen by the right people.

For additional information and help in this area, see our module on Content Promotion and our section on Content Promotion Tools.

8. Lack Of Analysis And Improvement

Without ongoing analysis and improvement, it can be difficult to know what is and isn’t working, and you may miss out on opportunities to optimize your content and achieve better results.

Solution: Analyze the performance of your content and use the data to improve it

Analyzing the performance of your content and using the data to improve it is an important aspect of content strategy.

By tracking content metrics such as views, clicks, and engagement, you can measure content performance, identify what is and isn’t working, and make changes to optimize your content and achieve better results.

Ongoing analysis and improvement can help you continually improve your content and achieve your goals.

9. Inconsistent Tone And Branding

Having an inconsistent tone or brand voice can be confusing and off-putting to your audience.

Developing a consistent brand voice can be difficult, especially if your business does not have a clear understanding of its brand identity and messaging.

Solution: Create a brand voice and messaging guide

Create a brand voice and messaging guide that outlines the key elements of the brand’s personality, tone, and messaging, and use this guide to ensure consistency across all content.

Maintaining a consistent tone and branding across all of your content is important for creating a cohesive and professional image.

By keeping your tone and branding consistent, you can create a more cohesive experience for your audience and build trust.

See this section for more details: How To Create A Brand Voice And Messaging Guide.

10. Lack Of Resources

Having insufficient resources, such as time, budget, or personnel, can make it difficult to execute your content strategy effectively.

Without the necessary resources, it may be challenging to create high-quality content, promote it effectively, or analyze and improve it.

Solution: Allocate sufficient resources (e.g., time, budget, personnel) for your content strategy

Allocating the necessary resources can help you create high-quality content, promote it effectively, and analyze and improve it on an ongoing basis.

For additional information and help in this area, see our lesson on Digital Business Setups.

11. Ineffective Collaboration And Communication Within The Team

Without good communication, it can be difficult to coordinate efforts and ensure that all team members are on the same page.

Solution: Foster effective collaboration and communication within your team

Effective collaboration and communication within your content team and other departments is essential for creating and executing a successful content strategy.

By fostering good communication and collaboration, you can ensure that all team members are on the same page and working towards a common goal.

12. Not Staying Up-To-Date With Industry Trends And Best Practices

If you are not keeping up with the latest trends and best practices, your content may become outdated or irrelevant, which can negatively impact your content strategy.

Solution: Stay up-to-date with industry trends and best practices

Staying up-to-date with industry trends and best practices is crucial for creating relevant and effective content.

By keeping up with the latest trends and best practices, you can create content that is timely and relevant to your audience.

13. Not Adjusting Your Strategy Based On Changes In Your Industry Or Audience

If you don’t stay up-to-date with changes in your industry or audience, your content may no longer be relevant or effective, which can negatively impact your strategy.

Solution: Adjust your strategy based on changes in your industry or audience

Your industry and audience are constantly evolving, and it is important to adjust your content strategy accordingly.

By staying up-to-date with changes in your industry or audience, you can create content that remains relevant and effective.

14. Not Being Able To Measure The Success Of Your Content

Without the ability to measure the success of your content, it is difficult to know how well your strategy is performing and what areas need improvement.

Solution: Implement tools and processes for measuring the success of your content

Measuring the success of your content is an important aspect of content strategy because it helps you understand what is and isn’t working.

By implementing tools and processes for tracking metrics such as views, clicks, and engagement, you can gain valuable insights into the performance of your content and make improvements.

15. Lack Of A Clear Content Creation Process

Without a clear process, it may be difficult to create content efficiently or maintain a consistent tone and branding.

Solution: Develop a clear content creation process

Having a clear content creation process in place helps to ensure efficiency and consistency in your content creation efforts.

By outlining the steps for creating, approving, and publishing content, you can streamline your content creation process and ensure that all team members are on the same page.

For additional information and help in this area, see these sections of the course:

16. Not Having A Content Governance Plan

Without a content governance plan, it may be challenging to maintain quality control and consistency in your content.

Solution: Create a content governance plan to ensure quality control and consistency.

A content governance plan outlines the roles and responsibilities of team members, the process for creating and approving content, and the standards for quality and consistency.

By having a content governance plan in place, you can ensure that your content is of high quality and consistent with your brand guidelines.

tip

If you are still experiencing content-related issues after going through the items listed above, try troubleshooting your content plan.

Your Content Strategy Is The Key To Your Content Success

Troubleshooting your content strategy is an important step for ensuring that you are creating and distributing effective content.

By identifying common problems and implementing solutions, you can create a content strategy that engages your audience, builds trust, and helps you achieve your goals.

Don’t be afraid to experiment with different approaches and make adjustments based on the data and feedback you receive. With a little effort and attention, you can create a content strategy that truly resonates with your audience and helps your business achieve its desired results.

Refer to the Content Troubleshooting Guide if you experience other issues or problems with your content strategy.

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Image: Frustrated Blogger

The Challenges Of Managing Content Effectively

Learn about the main challenges to managing content effectively and how to address these. 

The Challenges Of Managing Content Effectively

Content management challenges abound in all organizations. Learn about the main challenges to managing content effectively and how to address these. 

Content Management Challenges - Frustrated laptop user.

There are many challenges to managing content effectively. These include having too much content, multiple contributors, outdated content, adapting to new technologies and platforms, and more.

We explore these challenges in more detail and offer suggestions for effectively addressing them in this lesson.

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This article is part of our Content Troubleshooting Guide, where we help you identify and fix content-related issues in your business.

To learn how to address common challenges and concerns about content-related activities, see our comprehensive Guide To Overcoming Content Challenges.

Are You Managing Your Content Effectively?

Content management is about effectively creating, organizing, and maintaining digital content. This is not only essential for your business to operate efficiently, but also to communicate with all stakeholders.

There are, however, many challenges to managing your content effectively, and poor content management leads to confusion, costly delays, and lost business opportunities.

Think about this…

If your business has an online presence, it almost certainly needs content.

This applies to all businesses. If your company wants to compete online effectively, especially against larger competitors, it needs to regularly create and promote new content (your competition is doing the same).

New content, however, gets old very quickly. Old content with outdated, irrelevant, inaccurate, or obsolete information almost always has no value to users and can hurt your business.

Additionally, the more content you have, the more content you have to manage.

Now … stop for a moment and think about all the content and all the content-related areas your business needs to manage.

You will soon realize that effective content management involves managing not only your existing content, but all content-related areas and processes associated with content planning, content production, and content promotion.

Look deeper and you will realize that there are some obvious challenges to managing content effectively and some that are not so obvious.

Let’s look at these areas.

Managing Content Effectively – Obvious Challenges

The obvious challenges of managing your content effectively include:

1. The Challenge Of Too Much Content

As your business creates and acquires more digital content, it can become difficult to sort and organize it all in a way that is easily accessible and makes sense.

This can lead to important information getting lost or overlooked.

To effectively manage a large amount of content, it is important to implement a system for organizing and tagging content, perform regular content reviews, and purge unnecessary or outdated items.

Also, use a content management system (CMS) or other tools to help categorize and structure your content.

2. The Challenge Of Multiple Contributors

When multiple people or teams contribute content to your company’s digital assets, coordinating and consolidating these contributions can be challenging.

It is important to establish clear guidelines and protocols for content creation and submission, and a system for reviewing and approving new content.

Ensuring that all content meets standards for quality and consistency is also crucial. This is where documenting procedures can help, as well as using a workflow management system or other tools to help streamline the content creation and approval process.

3. The Challenge Of Outdated Content

Outdated content containing inaccurate or obsolete information can be confusing for users and it can harm your credibility.

Regularly reviewing and updating content is essential to ensure it is current and accurate. It is also good to consider repurposing old content rather than simply deleting it, as it may still be valuable in a different form or context.

This may involve using a content calendar or other tools to help schedule and track content updates.

4. The Challenge Of Adapting To New Technologies And Platforms

As new content management systems and tools are developed, your business must stay current to ensure the effective management of its digital content.

This can be a challenge, as learning and implementing new technologies requires effort and resources. Additionally, it is important to ensure that content is compatible with various platforms and devices, as more and more users access the internet through mobile devices and other non-traditional means.

This may involve using responsive design techniques or other methods to ensure that content is accessible and user-friendly across different devices and platforms.

5. The Challenge Of Securing And Protecting Content

Ensuring that sensitive or confidential content is secure and protected from unauthorized access or leaks is crucial for your business.

This may involve implementing security measures like password protection, encryption, content hotlinking prevention, and access controls to protect sensitive content.

6. The Challenge Of Measuring The Effectiveness Of Content

Determining the impact and effectiveness of content is essential for making informed decisions about future content strategies.

This may involve using analytics tools or other content tracking methods to measure content metrics such as engagement, conversion rates, and return on investment (ROI) for different types of content.

7. The Challenge Of Integrating Content With Other Systems And Processes

Ensuring that content is integrated and aligned with other systems and processes within the organization is important for optimizing efficiency and avoiding confusion or duplication of effort.

This may involve using integration tools or other methods to seamlessly link content with other systems and processes.

8. The Challenge Of Budget And Resource Constraints

Allocating sufficient budget and resources to content management efforts can be a challenge, especially for smaller businesses or those with limited resources.

It is important to prioritize content management efforts and allocate resources accordingly while finding ways to maximize efficiency and reduce costs where possible.

We cover the challenges involved in this area in more detail in our Digital Business Setups lesson.

9. The Challenge Of Managing Client Content

Managing client content poses challenges involving communication, organization, and consistency.

Effective communication is crucial to understanding client expectations and delivering content that meets their needs, but it can often be difficult to ensure clarity and alignment between parties.

Organizational issues can also arise from the sheer volume and variety of content, requiring robust systems for tracking and managing various assets and versions.

Maintaining consistency across all client content is also a significant challenge, as it requires adherence to brand guidelines and quality standards while accommodating your client’s unique requirements.

Additionally, addressing client feedback or complaints efficiently is essential to maintaining positive relationships and ensuring ongoing satisfaction.

We address these challenges and provide solutions in this lesson: Managing Client Content

Managing Content Effectively – “Not-So-Obvious” Challenges

Now that we have looked at the obvious challenges of managing your content effectively, let’s look at the “not-so-obvious” challenges that are not apparent until you start trying to manage your content effectively.

Challenge #1 – Effective Content Management Is A Catch-22 Situation

Have you heard the expression “no one will hire you without experience, but you can’t get experience if no one will hire you?”

That’s an example of a “Catch-22” situation.

Managing content can feel somewhat like that.

You can’t plan, produce, promote, and manage content effectively until you have put in the right systems and processes to plan, produce, promote, and manage content effectively.

Putting all these systems and processes in place, however, requires a significant investment of time, effort, and resources.

Most businesses have very limited time, effort, and resources.

So…do you:

A) Invest your time, effort, and resources into putting the right systems and processes in place to plan, produce, promote, and manage your content effectively, and then create and promote your content, or…

B) Invest your time, effort, and resources into creating and promoting content, and then start putting systems and processes in place?

Chart - Content Management Options.
Which of these options will you choose to manage content effectively in your business?

Managing content effectively requires choosing option “A”.

Many businesses, however, choose option “B” because it seems more practical.

Publishing and promoting content first and then worrying about systems and processes when things start becoming unmanageable, however, only leads to more challenges and bigger problems.

Challenge #2 – All Areas Of Your Business Are Involved

Your content strategy is part of your content management system, so if you start creating and promoting content before developing your content strategy and putting other systems in place to manage your content effectively, then what’s the point of having a content strategy?

Without a content strategy, you are just creating content blindly based on guesswork and assumptions without any real direction or ways to measure and track your content’s performance, so it’s all going to be hit and miss and eventually your business will have a very difficult mess to deal with and many problems to sort out.

So you want to put a content strategy in place before you start creating and promoting content.

This, however, has its own challenges.

First, there’s the challenge that content impacts all areas of your business as discussed in the lesson on your digital business structure.

Chart - Content involves all areas of your business.
Content impacts all areas of your business. Click the image to enlarge it.

Challenge #3 – Creating And Managing Content Effectively Requires A Sizeable Digital Team

Next, is the realization that creating effective content requires a sizeable content team.

Chart - Digital Content Team.
Managing content effectively requires a sizeable content team.

There are many different roles involved in the process of planning, creating, promoting, and managing content, and whether you’re an individual blogger or part of a larger organization, all of these roles and responsibilities have to be met to create and manage your content effectively.

This leads to the next challenge…

Challenge #4 – Effective Content Management Requires Significant Resources

We touched briefly on the challenge of resource constraints earlier.

However, it’s not until you seriously try to start managing your content effectively that you realize just how resource-intensive creating and managing content can be.

You need a sizeable budget and personnel with skills and expertise, plus research, planning, and documented systems, all of which take time to create and take resources away from other areas of the business.

Chart - Content Strategy requires resources
Creating effective content requires significant resources.

Most businesses operate with limited resources and have very little time to devote to important areas like planning and documenting systems.

If, like most businesses, your decisions are influenced by a lack of time and resources, by competitive and financial pressures, and by the need to make things happen sooner rather than later, then your ability to manage content effectively may be heading toward bigger problems.

For example, here’s what can happen when you choose option “B” (i.e. start with content, then try to put systems in place later):

1) Little to no content planning

If your content is created based on keyword research but there is no content strategy or content plan and new content projects are mostly based on guesswork and assumptions instead of solid research and analytical data, then your content pipeline will keep drying up, leaving your team continually scrambling to come up with new content ideas.

2) Chaotic and disorganized content production

If there is no content plan and there are no documented procedures for workflow processes and operational guides for doing content research, creating a content brief, using content production tools, etc. your content production will be chaotic and disorganized, leading to inconsistent production outputs.

3) Hard to measure and quantify content performance

If, in addition to the above, your content metrics and content marketing objectives are not well-defined, any generated reports won’t lead to actionable efforts or initiatives to improve results, and your content marketing activities and ROI will be difficult to quantify and calculate.

Challenge #5 – Building Content Management Systems As You Go Is Hard To Do

Think about all the areas of your business that are involved in the planning, creation, delivery, distribution, and promotion of content.

Now, ask yourself:

  • How quickly can your business create and publish new content?
  • What’s stopping you from creating more content and publishing it faster?
  • How does your business keep a pipeline of new content going?
  • How does your business keep the information in your existing content (across all content types and distribution channels) up-to-date, relevant, and accurate?
  • How do you know when your content is out-of-date or has become irrelevant, inaccurate, or obsolete?
  • How can you tell if your content is performing well?
  • How do you keep your content processes documented, organized, and accessible so anyone needing the information can locate it quickly and easily?
  • How can you tell if your team members implement and follow effective content management processes?
  • How quickly can your business adapt to incorporate new content planning, production, and promotion processes, strategies, methods, and tools?

From the above, it should be clear that not only does your content need management but all of the content-related processes and areas responsible for planning, creating, delivering, distributing, and promoting your content too.

And to manage all of this effectively requires systems.

This is where option “C” comes in. You develop, test, and improve your systems while creating and promoting content, documenting everything as you go, and repeating this process.

Chart - Effective Content Management
Option C involves building, testing, and improving your content management systems as you go.

Option “C” will help your business solve the challenges of managing content effectively, but it is very challenging and hard to do, especially if you have already started down the path of “Option B” (i.e. create and promote content first, and then worry about putting systems and processes in place later).

Building systems to document the work as you do the work requires a total “buy-in” from everyone in your organization, and the focus and commitment to work twice as hard and twice as long, often with little to no resources, and with no guarantees that things will work out until everything is in place and you can assess the results.

Even just thinking about it can feel overwhelming, because content impacts every area of your business!

But even before you can put all of these systems in place, there is one more “not-so-obvious” challenge your business has to overcome…

Challenge #6 – Managing Content Effectively Requires Solid Business Foundations

No doubt you’ve heard the expression “walk before you run”.

Without basic business foundations in place, managing content effectively becomes almost impossible.

Chart - business processes.
Many processes need to be put in place before your business can manage its content effectively.

For example, suppose you want to write and publish an article on your website that will help your business generate new leads.

You care about the reputation of your business, so naturally, you will want to publish only quality content across all channels…from your site’s company pages, product descriptions, and blog posts, to social media posts, emails, newsletters, banner ads, sales, marketing, and training content, videos, collateral materials, etc.

Also, because your business has limited time and resources, you’ll want to avoid guesswork and taking blind stabs in the dark. If you are going to invest time, money, and effort into activities designed to promote and grow your business online, every activity must be geared toward generating optimal results and delivering maximum return on investment.

So, ideally, your lead generation article will target the right audience, with the right message, at the right time, to help them make the right decision (e.g. buy, subscribe, submit an inquiry, etc.).

To do this effectively, however, you need accurate information to help you understand who you are writing the article for (i.e. your target audience).

In other words, even before you begin writing your lead generation article, you will need to know things like:

  • Who is going to buy your products or services?
  • What problems are they looking to solve?
  • Why would they buy from you and not from your competitors?
  • What can stop them from buying your products or services?
  • etc.

Once you understand this, you can begin to write the article from the instructions provided in your content brief.

Now…your content brief is created from the specifications and guidelines set out in your content plan.

But …

And all of this should have been defined during the business planning phase after a need has been identified in the market, and you have done research and feasibility studies to determine whether there is even an opportunity worth pursuing (and this should be done even before you spend any time or money getting a website built!).

Ok, let’s assume that you have done all of the above before writing your lead generation article and you know the who, what, how, why, and when of your article’s purpose.

All you need to do now is write the article, right?

Whoaaa … not so fast! Let’s think about this for a moment.

Creating a high-quality, high-value, and high-yielding article involves an editorial process with activities like content scheduling, production, planning, research, writing, editing, and different stages of reviews and approvals before the content can be published.

This requires having some expertise and skills (e.g. content research, content writing/copywriting, editing, media creation, etc.).

For example, your article needs elements like a compelling headline, useful content that will engage your reader’s interest, a call to action, and additional copy elements like summaries, excerpts, artwork, images, image captions, product and meta descriptions, testimonials, references, credits, attributions, etc.

You may also need to source, create, script, produce, edit, format, and upload media elements to your server,  like images, logos, photos, videos, audio, downloadable files, and other documentation before you can insert these into your article or web pages.

After this is done, you then also need to revise, format, fact-check, search optimize, proof, edit, review, and approve your article before you can publish, distribute, and promote it.

There are also additional checks like making sure that the content flows well and your article is easy to read; that any links in your content to related articles or additional information point to correct URLs; that branding guidelines have been adhered to; that any embedded scripts or code (e.g. rotating testimonials, forms, etc.) work correctly; that there are no distracting elements that could negatively affect your conversions; that the content displays well on all web browsers and devices, etc.

Also, you may need to obtain clearances and clarifications from other departments before your article can be published.

For example, the article may contain information related to products or services that include pricing or tax information, special offers, competitions, discount coupons, product or service availability, product ordering, shipping and delivery, liability disclaimers, terms and conditions, brand or product licensing, use of images or media, copyright, trademarks, etc.

All this needs to be cleared with your marketing, accounting, and legal teams.

Finally, you may need to consult management or executive levels (e.g. product, finance, or operations manager) to make sure that the article complies with all company policies, manufacturer specifications, third-party service guidelines, industry rules and regulations, and any other legal requirements.

But it doesn’t end there.

You want your investment of time and effort to achieve consistently and progressively better results for your business, don’t you?

So, after publishing the article, you will also want to track and measure your results and document these in a report so you can review, analyze, and improve your content’s performance.

After publishing, you may also need to moderate comments, answer questions, reply to user inquiries, collect and collate form data, and add new entries to your site’s FAQ section (for example, if you repeatedly get the same questions from your site visitors, prospects, customers, etc).

As you can see, creating something as seemingly simple as an article for your website requires systems and processes in place…

  • before the article gets written (to ensure that you’re targeting the right audience),
  • during the content production process (e.g. review workflows and scheduling when the article will be published), and
  • after the article has been published (e.g. tracking its results and performance).

In short, unless your business doesn’t care about the content it publishes, there is nothing simple about creating content for your website or blog.

It requires participation from all areas of your business and the effective integration and coordination of different roles, systems, and processes, in addition to ensuring that everyone involved follows all content procedures, specifications, and guidelines, while also ensuring compliance with all company, departmental, and legal policies…staying aligned all the while with the goals and objectives of the business.

Ideally, everything required to write an article as described above would be in place before the article is written.

Of course, you can ignore all this, and just start writing and promoting your articles and see what happens!

If You Don’t Want To Guess Your Way To Success…

If you want to avoid guesswork, the first step to managing your content effectively is to accept that effective content management is not a simple undertaking.

Your business will need to put effective content management systems in place to grow using content, continually review your content’s performance, and improve its results.

While there are loads of useful information and tools that can help you do this (including our lessons), there is no one-click, “done-for-you”, “set-and-forget”, “hands-free” service, software, or app that will allow you to manage your content effectively.

It’s a process and it requires a systemic approach.

Summary

Effective content management is essential for your business to operate efficiently and to communicate effectively with all stakeholders.

Managing content effectively in any organization, however, is a complex and difficult undertaking, as content impacts all areas of your business.

It can also feel like a “Catch-22” situation. You can’t plan, produce, promote, and manage content effectively until you have put in the right systems and processes to plan, produce, promote, and manage content effectively.

While there are challenges to managing content effectively, your business can overcome these by implementing effective content management systems.

Action Steps

Assess how willing your business is to become systems-driven (instead of personality-driven).

If you haven’t already, we recommend starting with the following steps:

Resources

***

Image: Home Office

Generate Quality Website Content Using AI

Can AI generate quality content that is engaging and valuable for human readers? Let’s find out…

Generate Website Content Using AI

Learn about the capabilities of AI in content generation and whether it can produce material that is engaging and valuable for human readers.

AI Content Generation - Laptop image with AI hand pressing key.Can AI really generate quality content that is engaging and valuable for human readers?

If so, would that not save your business significant and valuable time and money in areas like content planning, content research, and content production?

In this article, we’ll look at how AI tools can be used to generate quality content for your website, as well as the benefits and limitations of this approach.

Using AI Tools To Generate Quality Content For Your Website

Can AI really generate quality content that is engaging and valuable for human readers? If the answer is “yes”, would that not save your business significant and valuable time and money in areas like content planning and content production?

Artificial intelligence (AI) has come a long way in recent years, with numerous tools now available to assist with a variety of tasks.

One area where AI has the potential to make a significant impact is in the generation of written content. With the ability to analyze data and generate text, AI tools have the potential to create high-quality content for human readers.

However, the question remains: can AI tools truly generate content that is comparable to that produced by humans? And what are the benefits and limitations of this approach? And will it rank in the search engines?

ChatGPT: Free AI Content Writing Tool

I recently came across a “next-level” AI tool that is generating quite a buzz.

It’s called  ChatGPT. This technology not only displays impressive human-like content writing abilities, but it’s also (currently) free to use.

ChatGPT
ChatGPT is a powerful AI technology with impressive human-like content-writing abilities.

I discovered ChatGPT while researching content writing tools for this course.

As a professional content writer, I became very curious about this tool, so after watching some videos about ChatGPT on YouTube, I decided to see for myself whether this tool was capable of generating a high-quality article on a substantial topic quickly from scratch.

I also decided to record the entire content creation process from start to finish on video and share it here with you for free, so you can decide for yourself whether you would use AI to generate content for your own business and website.

You can watch all videos of my free “How To Create Quality Content Quickly Using Artificial Intelligence Tools” video course in the section below.

Following the video course section, I provide a written tutorial with additional comments and information about the article creation process.

How To Create Quality Content Quickly Using Free AI Tools – Free Video Course

Learn how to use the latest advanced AI technology to generate high-quality content quickly and easily for your business and website (no coding or technical skills required.)

If you want to save time and money creating quality articles and blog posts for your website in minutes instead of days or weeks, the step-by-step practical video course below will show you exactly how to do it.

To read the complete article that chatGPT generated (in less than 6 minutes), go here: 5 Tips For Streamlining Your Content Management Process

How To Create Quality Content Quickly Using Free AI Tools – Tutorial

Let’s break down all the steps I took to create an entirely AI-generated article in minutes. You can watch the video lesson and then review the notes below each video for more information.

Part 1 – AI Content Generation: Overview

As mentioned earlier, I wanted to see if today’s AI technology is capable of generating a high-quality article quickly, so I decided to use the tool to generate the following:

  • Content Ideas
  • Article Headlines
  • Article Outline
  • Article Introduction
  • Content For All Article Sections
  • Article Conclusion

As mentioned in the video, I had not used the tool previously to generate content and so I set certain goals and expectations, which I then discuss in the video:

How To Create Quality Content Using AI Tools video course - goals
These were my goals for using ChatGPT.

I then reviewed if and how each of these goals was met in the last video of the course.

Part 2 – Why AI Writing Tools Sucked…Until Now!

After providing an overview of the video course, we then looked at some of the earlier methods used by tools claiming to use AI technologies and their limitations.

In the video, I provide actual examples of some of the hilarious results of tools that generate rubbish content and some of the methods used.

info

It’s important to note that some of the tools that have evolved from the earlier methods shown in the video are actually quite good at what they do, provided they are used correctly.

Some of these tools include:

  • Quillbot – A language processing tool that uses artificial intelligence to rephrase and rewrite sentences and paragraphs. It is designed to help users generate new versions of text that are different from the original, while still retaining the meaning and tone of the original content. You can use this tool for a variety of purposes, such as generating unique content for websites, paraphrasing text for use in academic papers, and improving your writing skills with suggested alternative word choices and sentence structures.
  • SpinRewriter – This tool helps you generate new, readable versions of your original article using a proprietary technology called ENL Semantic Spinning and a hand-curated database of synonyms.

Part 3  – ChatGPT: Free AI Content Writing Tool

ChatGPT is an exciting and impressive new AI technology that helps you write quality content quickly and easily…for free!

Interestingly enough, when I asked ChatGPT to provide me with a description of itself, it played “dumb” and went into denial, as if calling it a bot was insulting…

ChatGPT - Screen grab.
Sorry, ChatGPT … I didn’t mean to offend you!

However, when I asked ChatGPT (I mean, “Artificial Intelligence Assistant” to create a video script describing all the ways I could use it to make money online, the tool seemed to have no issue referring to itself in the 3rd-person:

ChatGPT is a powerful language model developed by OpenAI that can generate human-like text based on a given prompt. It can be used for a variety of purposes, including generating content for websites and social media, creating chatbot responses, and more.

In this video, we’ll be exploring some of the ways you can use ChatGPT to make money online.

  • Content creation: ChatGPT can be used to generate articles, blog posts, and other types of written content. You can use it to create unique and engaging content for your own website or blog, or you can offer your services as a freelance writer or content creator to businesses and organizations.
  • Chatbot development: ChatGPT can be used to create chatbot responses that are personalized and engaging. You can use it to build chatbots for customer service, sales, or any other purpose, and offer your services as a chatbot developer to businesses and organizations.
  • Social media management: ChatGPT can be used to generate social media posts, including captions and hashtags. You can use it to manage the social media accounts of businesses and organizations, creating engaging and relevant content on a regular basis.
  • Virtual assistant: ChatGPT can be used to create responses to customer inquiries, schedule appointments, and perform other tasks typically handled by a virtual assistant. You can offer your services as a virtual assistant using ChatGPT to handle a variety of tasks for businesses and individuals.

There are many other ways you can use ChatGPT to make money online, and the possibilities are only limited by your imagination. Whether you’re a content creator, chatbot developer, social media manager, or virtual assistant, ChatGPT can help you provide valuable services and make money in the process.

ChatGPT - Make Money with ChatGPT video script.
ChatGPT will even tell you how to make money online!

To use the tool, you will need to sign up and create an OpenAI account.

After logging in, you will come to the tool’s main screen and its simple interface.

In the main section of the screen, you will find some examples of things you can ask the tool with descriptions of the tool’s capabilities and limitations.

Below it is the prompt where you enter your request and then hit enter, and on the left-hand sidebar, you will see a button for starting a new chat, a list with a history of your previous requests, and some settings (clear conversation, switch between light and dark mode) and additional information.

ChatGPT main screen.
Inside ChatGPT.

To start a new conversation, simply type in what you want to ask into the prompt, hit enter, and watch ChatGPT do its magic.

For example, in the chat below, I entered “Suggest 5 unique gifts for left-handed people” and this is what the tool created in mere seconds:

ChatGPT generated list
ChatGPT generated this list of unique lefty gifts in seconds.

Here are some additional things to note:

  • ChatGPT remembers your previous conversations. So, if you are working on an article, for example, you can enter new requests without referring to the article by name and the tool will know what you are referencing.
  • You can regenerate a response. ChatGPT will deliver you an entirely new reply, and you can toggle between the various generated responses.

tip

Sometimes, ChatGPT will just hang up in the middle of a reply.

If this happens, try typing “complete the above section.” into the prompt. ChatGPT will often resume its train of thought and complete its answer.

ChatGPT - Interrupted session
If ChatGPT hangs up mid-reply, try typing “complete the above section.” into the prompt to resume.

Part 4 – Generating New Content Ideas…Fast!

In this video, we look at how to use ChatGPT to generate great new content ideas for articles, blog posts, newsletters, videos, etc.

For example, when I typed “Generate 10 ideas for articles on effective content management with a brief description” into the tool, here is what ChatGPT returned in around 45 seconds:

ChatGPT request: Generate 10 ideas for articles on effective content management with a brief description
It took ChatGPT around 45 seconds to deliver the above list of content ideas for articles on effective content management.

Part 5 – Generating Your Article Outline

After generating a list of content ideas for articles on effective content management, the next step was to pick an article idea from the list and ask ChatGPT to generate an outline.

I picked the first article from the list and typed “Generate an outline for a comprehensive article on “5 Tips for Streamlining Your Content Management Process” into the tool.

Here is what ChatGPT returned in around 35 seconds:

ChatGPT: Generate an outline for a comprehensive article on 5 Tips for Streamlining Your Content Management Process
It only took ChatGPT around 35 seconds to deliver this article outline.

Part 6 – Generating Your Article Introduction

In less than a minute and a half, I had a list of great content ideas and an article outline.

Now it was time to begin building the actual article, so I asked ChatGPT to generate an introduction for the article.

Here’s what I got back after 15 seconds:

Chat GPT: Create an introduction for the article "5 Tips for Streamlining Your Content Management Process"
Chat GPT generated an introduction section for my article in 15 seconds.

This was so quick, that I asked the tool to regenerate a response and provide me with an alternative intro.

So, after one click, here’s what I got…

ChatGPT - alternative article introduction
ChatGPT generated an alternative introduction for my article with just one click.

So far, it’s not bad for less than 2 minutes work clicking a couple of buttons.

Let’s move on and…

Part 7 – Generating Your Article Conclusion

After using the tool to generate ideas, an outline, and a couple of great intros for my article, I decided to not only ask the tool to generate a conclusion section for the article in this video, but I also tested ChatGPT’s AI capabilities to recognize the context of our conversation and to “think outside the box” by giving it the following instruction:

Generate a conclusion for the above article. Include a call to action in the form of a haiku and write a limerick about content management.

As you will see in the video, ChatGPT not only understood which article I was referring to, but it only blinked its cursor once before delivering the following article conclusion in 20 seconds:

ChatGPT - Article conclusion.
ChatGPT delivered an article conclusion and composed a topic-related Haiku and a limerick in about 20 seconds.

Part 8 – Generating Your Article Content Sections

By now, I was feeling pretty confident that this tool can do anything you ask it to, so I thought, why not ask it to create all of the article’s main content section in one go and expand on each of the 5 tips listed in the outline?

So, I entered the following request “Expand on all of the above tips and generate an article between 1,500-2,500 words. Format each tip as a section heading enclosed in <h2> tags.”

ChatGPT immediately began spitting out some wonderful content, including bullet points, but then, around Tip #3 it choked and kind of hung up.

As you will see if you watch the video, I tried regenerating the response, and again it got to around Tip #3 and went no further.

I immediately began thinking that maybe it had exceeded the 2,500 word limit in my instruction, but when I checked using an online counter, it was only around 600 words, so I’m not sure what happened there.

Anyway, I got the section done by going back into the tool and asking it to expand on the missing tips, which it did in a total of about 4 minutes.

So, I copied and pasted the various responses I received into my swipe file and moved right along.

Part 9 – Reviewing Your AI-Generated Content

With all of the content sections generated, it was time to put my article together, which I did by logging into my website, creating a new post, pasting the content from the swipe file into the WordPress editor, deleting any irrelevant bits, then making some final SEO tweaks and formatting adjustments and saving it as a draft post.

In the video, I review the finished (and unpublished) article and discuss the process in a little more detail.

Part 10 – AI-Generated Content: Wrap-Up

Having allowed ChatGPT to create the entire article from start to finish, I then did some checks for content plagiarism to make sure the tool wasn’t just giving me someone else’s existing content, and asked it to perform some additional tasks before publishing the article by entering the following instructions:

  • Provide a post excerpt for this article
  • Write a meta description for this article and supply relevant tags.
  • Suggest an appropriate royalty-free image to be used as this article’s featured image.
  • Suggest synonyms for “content management process”
  • Provide sources to verify the claim that WordPress offers the ability to automate content scheduling.

Again, ChatGPT did an impressive job, as you can see if you check out the video.

Having satisfied myself that the content was indeed original and looking good, I then published the article.

After publishing the article (you can read the entire article here: 5 Tips For Streamlining Your Content Management Process), I then looked at the total time taken to create it (6 minutes), and whether the Ai tool met each of my goals (it did).

Finally, I wrapped up the video recording by discussing other potential content creation uses for the tool (e.g. generating recipes, creating video scripts, story plots for books, generating content with AI voice narrations, etc.)

ChatGPT - Hot And Spicy Air Fryer Chicken Recipe
Letting bots write your web content can surely make you hungry…so I asked ChatGPT to suggest a delicious air-fried chicken recipe for lunch.

Should You Use AI Tools To Create Your Website Content?

Whether or not you should use AI tools to create your website content depends on your specific needs and goals. If you are looking for a quick and easy solution for generating content, AI tools may be a good option.

However, if you want to ensure that your content is of high quality and truly unique, it may be best to stick with human writers.

And if you want your ai-generated content to rank well in the search engines (which, of course, you do), then make sure that it complies with Google Search’s guidelines for AI-generated content.

Ultimately, the decision will depend on your priorities and the resources you have available.

Benefits And Limitations Of Using AI-Generated Content

There are several benefits to using AI tools to generate content for your website:

  • Efficiency: AI tools can analyze data and generate written material quickly and efficiently, which can save time and effort for content creators.
  • Consistency: AI tools can produce content that is consistent in terms of tone and style, which can be beneficial for maintaining a cohesive brand voice.
  • Error-free: AI tools can generate content that is free of spelling and grammar errors, which can improve the overall quality of the material.
  • Cost-effective: In some cases, using AI tools to generate content may be more cost-effective than hiring human writers.

However, there are also some limitations to using AI tools for content generation:

  • Lack of creativity: While AI tools can analyze data and generate text, they may struggle to produce content that is truly creative or innovative.
  • Lack of emotional connection: AI-generated content may not be able to effectively connect with readers on an emotional level, as it lacks the human element.
  • Potential for bias: If the data that is used to train the AI tool is biased, the generated content may also be biased.
  • Legal issues: In some cases, using AI-generated content may raise legal issues, such as copyright infringement or plagiarism. It’s important to carefully review any generated content to ensure it is legal to use.

Conclusion

In today’s digital age, it’s more important than ever to have a strong online presence. One way to achieve this is by regularly publishing high-quality content on your website.

But if you’re struggling to keep up with the demands of creating new material, you might be wondering if there’s a way to automate the process.

That’s where AI tools come in. By leveraging artificial intelligence, it’s possible to generate written content that is not only error-free but also engaging and valuable for your audience.

In this article, we’ve looked at how AI tools can be used to generate quality content for your website, as well as the benefits and limitations of this approach.

And, of course, I let ChatGPT create all of the above sections 😉

ChatGPT: generate a conclusion for this topic: "Should You Use AI Tools To Create Your Website Content?"

ChatGPT: What are the benefits and limitations of this approach?

ChatGPT: Create an introduction for an article titled "Using AI tools to generate quality content for your website"

The Last (Human) Word

While I feel tools like ChatGPT have tremendous potential to save businesses time and money in content-related areas like content planning, content research, content production, SEO, and other ways I have yet to imagine, the ethical use of artificial intelligence tools is the subject of wide debate everywhere, Google says that using AI writing tools is against its guidelines, and there are other things to consider before filling up your website with AI-generated content, such as the limitations described above.

While ChatGPT created an impressive article in just a few minutes and with only a few clicks, I doubt if it could have created the article you are reading now…but I could be wrong!

After all, I’m only human.

***

Image: AI Hand Robot

5 Tips For Streamlining Your Content Management Process

Streamline your content management process, save time, and improve efficiency with these practical tips.

5 Tips For Streamlining Your Content Management Process

Looking to streamline your content management process? These practical tips will help you save time and create high-quality content.

Content Management Process: Man writing on a notepad next to laptop.Content management is a crucial aspect of running a successful business or organization. It involves creating, organizing, and distributing content across various channels and platforms.

However, managing content can be time-consuming and complex, especially if you don’t have a streamlined process in place.

In this article, we’ll cover five practical tips for improving efficiency in your content management process. By implementing these strategies, you can save time, reduce errors, and better engage your audience with high-quality content.

Tip #1: Automate Repetitive Tasks

One of the easiest ways to streamline your content management process is to automate repetitive tasks. This can save time and reduce the risk of errors, allowing you to focus on more important tasks.

There are many different tasks that can be automated, including publishing social media posts, sending email newsletters, and updating website content.

To set up automation, you’ll need to choose a content management system (CMS) or third-party tool that offers automation capabilities. Many popular CMS platforms, such as WordPress and Drupal, offer built-in automation features or plugins that you can use to automate tasks.

Alternatively, you can use specialized third-party tools to automate social media or email marketing tasks, such as IFTTT (If This Then That), Zapier, or Buffer.

Here are a few examples of tasks that can be automated:

  • Social media: You can use a tool like Hootsuite or Buffer to schedule social media posts in advance. This allows you to create and schedule content in bulk, rather than having to log in and post manually every day.
  • Email newsletters: If you have a regular email newsletter, you can use a tool like Mailchimp, Aweber, or ConstantContact to automate the sending process. Simply create your newsletter template and schedule it to go out at a specific time.
  • Website updates: If you use a content management system for your website like WordPress, you can use automation to publish new content at a set time or to update existing content on a regular basis.

When setting up automation, it’s important to carefully plan and test your workflow to ensure that everything runs smoothly. You should also consider the potential risks and limitations of automation, such as the potential for errors or the need for ongoing maintenance.

Tip #2: Utilize Project Management Tools

Effective content management involves coordinating the efforts of multiple team members and having a project management tool can help with this.

A project management tool allows you to organize tasks, set deadlines, and track progress in one central location. This can improve communication among team members and help ensure that projects are completed on time.

There are many different project management tools to choose from, ranging from simple to-do list apps to more comprehensive platforms like Asana, Monday, or Trello. When choosing a project management tool, consider your team’s size, workflow, and budget.

Here are a few ways to use a project management tool in your content management process:

  • Assign tasks: Use the tool to assign tasks to specific team members and set deadlines. This ensures that everyone knows what they are responsible for and helps prevent overlap or gaps in coverage.
  • Collaborate on content: Use the tool to share drafts and collaborate on content in real time. This can help speed up the review and approval process and improve the overall quality of your content.
  • Monitor progress: Use the tool to track the progress of each task and project. This can help identify bottlenecks and potential delays and allow you to make adjustments as needed.

Tip #3: Set Clear Guidelines For Content Creation

Having clear guidelines in place for content creation can help ensure consistency and reduce the time spent on editing and revisions. These guidelines can cover things like tone, formatting, and approval processes.

To create guidelines, consider the needs and goals of your audience, as well as the tone and voice that you want to convey. You should also consider the specific platforms and channels where your content will be published.

Once you have established your guidelines, it’s important to document them and communicate them to your team. This can help ensure that everyone is on the same page and that there is a consistent approach to content creation.

Here are a few things to consider when creating content guidelines:

  • Tone: Establish the tone and voice that you want to use in your content. This could be formal, casual, informative, humorous, etc.
  • Formatting: Determine the formatting standards for your content, including font size and type, headings, bullet points, and other formatting elements.
  • Approval process: Set up a clear process for reviewing and approving content. This can include establishing who is responsible for reviewing content, setting deadlines for review, and outlining the steps for making changes or approving content for publication.

Tip #4: Create A Content Calendar

Having a content calendar in place can help you plan and organize your content in advance. This can save time and reduce the risk of missing deadlines or forgetting to publish content. A content calendar can also help you identify gaps in your content and plan ahead for events or promotions.

To create a content calendar, start by determining the types of content you want to create and the frequency with which you want to publish it. You should also consider the needs and interests of your audience and any upcoming events or promotions that you want to feature in your content.

Once you have a list of content ideas, you can start organizing them onto a calendar. You can use a spreadsheet, a paper calendar, or a tool like Trello or Asana to create your calendar.

Here are a few tips for creating and using a content calendar:

  • Schedule content in advance: Plan out your content as far in advance as possible. This can help you take advantage of seasonal trends and plan around events or promotions.
  • Be flexible: While it’s important to have a plan in place, be prepared to adjust your calendar as needed. You may need to shift content around due to changes in your business or in response to current events.
  • Integrate with other marketing efforts: Make sure your content calendar aligns with your overall marketing strategy. This can help you create a cohesive message and ensure that all of your marketing efforts are working together.

Tip #5: Regularly Review And Optimize Your Content Management Process

Effective content management is a continuous process, and it’s important to regularly review and optimize your strategy. This can help you identify areas for improvement and make adjustments as needed to ensure that your content is meeting the needs of your audience.

To review and optimize your content management process, you can analyze data and gather feedback from your team and your audience. This can help you identify areas that are working well and areas that could be improved.

Here are a few tips for reviewing and optimizing your content management process:

  • Analyze data: Use analytics tools to track the performance of your content. This can help you identify trends and areas for improvement, such as which types of content are most popular or which channels are driving the most traffic.
  • Gather feedback: Ask your team and your audience for feedback on your content. This can help you identify areas where you are meeting their needs and areas where you may need to make changes.
  • Set goals: Establish specific goals for your content and track your progress towards meeting them. This can help you focus your efforts and ensure that your content is aligned with your overall business goals.
  • Experiment: Don’t be afraid to try new things and see how they work. This could include testing different types of content, experimenting with different formats or channels, or looking for ways to improve your workflow processes.
  • Identify bottlenecks: Look for bottlenecks in your content management process that may be causing delays or inefficiencies. This could include things like a lack of clear guidelines, inadequate resources, or overly complex approval processes.
  • Make changes: Based on the data and feedback you have gathered, make changes to your content management process as needed. This could involve adjusting your content strategy, implementing new tools or processes, or making changes to your team structure.
  • Continuously review: Make reviewing and optimizing your content management process a regular part of your content strategy.

Streamline Your Content Management

In this article, we’ve covered five tips for streamlining your content management process.

By automating repetitive tasks, utilizing project management tools, setting clear guidelines for content creation, implementing a content calendar, and regularly reviewing and optimizing your process, you can save time and improve the efficiency of your content management efforts.

So take these strategies to heart, and see how they can help you manage your content with ease.

Streamline your content flow
Efficiency is key, my friend
Try these tips today

(AI-generated Haiku)

There once was a content manager, whose job was quite a go-getter.
She streamlined her process, and saved lots of stress,
Now her team is much more productive, no debtor!

(AI-generated limerick about content management)

***

Note: This article is entirely AI-generated. The entire process from start to finish is described in this article: Generate Web Content Using AI.

Image: Man Writing

Effective Content Management: Documenting Procedures

Learn how to improve your content management practices by documenting procedures effectively.

Documenting Procedures For Effective Content Management

Learn how to improve your content management practices by documenting procedures effectively.

Documenting Procedures - BindersIn this article, we will explore the importance of documenting procedures and how to effectively create and maintain them.

We’ll also walk you step-by-step through an example of documenting a procedure when creating content documentation for your business.

***

Why Document Procedures?

Writing clear and comprehensive procedures is crucial for the smooth operation of your organization.

Not only do well-documented procedures provide a roadmap for your employees and team members to follow, but they also provide a record of the steps taken to complete a task, serve as a useful reference for new hires, set standards of quality and ensure consistency in work processes, and improve your overall content management practices.

What Is The Best Way To Document A Procedure?

There are a few key steps to documenting a procedure effectively:

  1. Identify the purpose of the procedure: Clearly stating the purpose of the procedure will help ensure that it is followed correctly and will be useful for those who need to follow it.
  2. Outline the steps involved: List the steps involved in the procedure in a logical order, using numbered or bullet points. Make sure to include any necessary details, such as specific tools or equipment that will be needed.
  3. Use clear and concise language: Use language that is easy to understand and avoid using jargon or technical terms that may not be familiar to all readers.
  4. Include any necessary warnings or precautions: If there are any potential hazards or risks associated with the procedure, make sure to include them in the documentation.
  5. Include any necessary illustrations or diagrams: If a visual aid would help to explain the procedure more effectively, consider including a diagram or illustration.
  6. Test the procedure: Before finalizing the documentation, it can be helpful to test the procedure to ensure that it is clear and easy to follow.
  7. Review and update the documentation regularly: Procedures may change over time, so it is important to review and update the documentation as needed to ensure that it remains accurate and up-to-date.

An Example Of Documenting A Procedure

While the summarized steps shown above are helpful, the actual process of documenting a procedure effectively can sometimes be challenging.

To illustrate this, we’ll go through an actual example and show you how we add new videos to our training sites.

In addition to ContentManagementCourse.com, we also run two online training sites:

As part of our content management processes for these sites, any time WordPress releases a new version of its core software, we add information about the new version features and improvements, including video tutorials covering these features to the above sites as follows:

  • WPMasterclasses.com – Add the videos to our video course on building a WordPress site, and update the product information page, the site’s video lesson counters, and the page listing recently added videos.
  • WPTrainingManual.com – Publish a post about the latest WordPress version.

Note: We write our own content for those sites but we outsource the creation of the WordPress update videos to an external supplier.

So, when our video supplier notifies us that new videos covering the new WordPress version release are available, we then add these videos to our video training site and create a post about it on our WordPress training site.

Simple chart outlining process of updating training sites with new content.
When new videos are released, we update the content on our training sites.

Adding videos to a couple of sites and creating a post about it sounds simple and straightforward enough.

However, suppose we want to assign these tasks to a newly-hired team member or outsource it to a third-party service provider.

How would we communicate this process effectively to ensure that whoever does the work will perform all tasks consistently to the standards of quality that we ourselves maintain and expect?

Obviously, this involves creating some form of documentation, but how detailed does this documentation have to be?

Let’s walk through the actual process and see.

Documenting Processes vs Documenting Procedures

The simple diagram shown above explains what we want to do whenever a new version of WordPress is released (i.e. add videos to our training sites and create a post about it).

Here is the diagram again:

Simple chart outlining process of updating training sites with new content.
This is what we want done.

This diagram shows what we want done, but doesn’t explain any of the processes involved in adding video content to the training sites, creating a post about it, and making sure that all relevant information is included for our users and formatted correctly.

So let’s expand the diagram and include these processes as shown in the flowchart below:

Documenting Procedures: Flowchart - Adding new video content to training sites.
These are the main processes we need to be done to add new video content to our training sites.

In a nutshell, these are the processes we need done:

  1. When our video supplier notifies us that a new set of videos is available, we then…
  2. Log into the supplier’s website and download a zip file containing the videos and any additional information included with those files to our computer.
  3. Extract the video files, rename these to match our course website requirements, and prepare the videos for uploading.
  4. Upload the videos to our video course site via Amazon S3.
  5. Create new course pages for our members and embed the video file URLs into the course content.
  6. Update the product information page that non-members see when they visit the site, including the video lesson counters on the site’s home page and the All Access Pass Membership pages.
  7. Update the Video Updates Log page that informs users about the latest videos added to the site.
  8. Update the video site’s content production documentation (so we can track what content is added to the site).

Once the above is done, we then also…

  1. Source content about the new WordPress release from the official WordPress site.
  2. Create a new post for the updated WordPress version on the WordPress Updates section of WPTrainingManual.com
  3. Embed the video content into the post and publish.
  4. Promote the new post.

The above lists the processes we need to go through every time WordPress releases a new version.

It is, however, still only an “overview.” While it can serve as a guide to help our newly-hired team member or outsourced person understand what we need them to do, it doesn’t specify “how” we want all of these processes to be effectively carried out.

This can lead to confusion, errors, and time-wasting delays due to the lack of detailed instructions, and low-quality output.

So, the next step is to turn all of the above processes into documented step-by-step procedures that anyone can follow to ensure that all of the required tasks are carried out effectively to consistently high standards and performed correctly and efficiently.

Documenting Procedures: Creating Step-By-Step Documentation

In addition to the steps provided earlier, here is the process we suggest following to create step-by-step procedures for your team or for outsourcing:

  1. As you go through the process yourself, initially record the steps involved in the process (tip: record these in a plain text file using simple bullet-point lists).
  2. The next time you repeat the process, follow the steps on your bullet-point list and fill in any “missing gaps” you identify as you work through the processes.
  3. Transfer the contents of your list to a shareable format (e.g. a Word or Google Doc document, an online page on a private section of your site reserved for staff training, etc.)
  4. The next time the task needs to be done, give your list to someone else and ask them to follow the documented instructions. Note down any areas of difficulty experienced by the other person, particularly areas like not knowing where to access login details, not knowing how to use certain software or tools, or not knowing how to perform certain tasks (e.g. how to create a post in WordPress).
  5. Use the information obtained from the previous step to expand your documentation (e.g. add links to other documents containing login details, link to software tutorials or other training sites, add screenshots or video screencasts to illustrate certain steps, etc.)
  6. Give your expanded document to someone else and repeat Step 3, i.e. ask them to complete the task following the documentation. Repeat this process until someone else can perform all of the required tasks successfully on their own by simply following the documentation.
  7. Add the documented procedure to your main content documentation and periodically review and update the information to keep it current, relevant, and accurate.

Let’s show you what “Steps 1 to 3” above would look like as a documented procedure using the example in the section below…

===  START EXAMPLE DOCUMENTATION  ===

[Note: Begin this document by providing an “Overview” of the 12 processes involved in performing and completing the task, as described earlier.]

WordPress Videos – New Version Releases

This section explains how to:

Tools And Resources Required To Perform This Task

The following resources, sites, services, tools, etc. are required to complete this task (contact your manager for access to all login details, software licenses, etc.):

  • Login details to PLR4WP.com  (video supplier website).
  • Access to hard drive folders: C:\Business\Businesses\A - WPMasterclasses\01-Vids Various\PLR4WP and C:\Business\Businesses\A - WPMasterclasses\00-Production\WPMC-0019 - BuildWP\00-videos
  • Access to Amazon AWS S3 account: Bucket = “wpmasterclasses” https://wpmasterclasses.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/vids/0019
  • Admin access to sites: https://wpmasterclasses.com and https://wptrainingmanual.com (if you are a site administrator, see “Assets” spreadsheet for login details. If you are not a site administrator, then contact your manager for login details).
  • S3 Browser
  • S3 Media Maestro plugin for WordPress (use the supplied shortcode shown in the documentation).
  • NoteTab Pro text editor.
  • Photoshop image editing application.
  • WPMasterclasses Video Course Production Documentation master spreadsheet (Excel).

1 – Adding New Videos to WPMasterclasses.com

Destination Video Course

Add the WordPress version update videos to the following video course:

NEW WORDPRESS VERSION Videos – Procedures

1) Download And Prepare Video Source Files

When an email notification is sent from the video supplier informing us that videos for a new WordPress version or video updates are available, do the following:

  • Log into https://members.plr4wp.com/vol-01sn4/
  • Create a new folder with the WP version number (note: ignore periods, so “WP61” not “WP6.1, “WP62” not “WP6.2”, etc.) inside hard drive folders C:\Business\Businesses\A - WPMasterclasses\01-Vids Various\PLR4WP and C:\Business\Businesses\A - WPMasterclasses\00-Production\WPMC-0019 - BuildWP\00-videos
  • Download video zip files from the supplier website into the hard drive folder C:\Business\Businesses\A - WPMasterclasses\01-Vids Various\PLR4WP
  • Extract all videos into the above-created folder. Note: the extracted files contain various folders (transcripts, raw video files, audio files, etc.). The video files we need to upload are the finished .mp4 files (not the whitelabel version with the included source files).
  • Duplicate the extracted .mp4 video folder and add “renamed” to the file name.
  • Rename .mp4 videos to the filename format wp-version-videonumber-concisefilename (e.g. from “vol1-vid3.18d-whats-new-in-wp-6.1-document-settings-changes” to “wp-61-d-document-settings-changes”).
  • Move renamed .MP4 videos to the WP version folder created in C:\Business\Businesses\A - WPMasterclasses\00-Production\WPMC-0019 - BuildWP\00-videos
  • Notes: some videos include accompanying notes (e.g. scripts, checklists, or templates). Add these to this hard drive folder: C:\Business\Businesses\A - WPMasterclasses\00-Production\WPMC-0019 - BuildWP\02-dl

2) Upload Video Files To S3 Bucket

After downloading the video files from the video supplier’s website and preparing the video source files for uploading, the next step is to upload all the video files to the correct S3 bucket on our Amazon S3 account.

To do this, follow the steps below:

  • Launch S3 Browser
  • Go to Amazon S3 bucket = wpmasterclasses > vids > 0019
  • Create a new folder in S3 with the same name as the video download folder (e.g.: wp61) inside the course folder 0019
  • Upload all videos to the above bucket.
  • After all video files are uploaded, select all files and set permissions as follows:
    • Owner = Full Control
    • Any AWS Users = Read
    • All Users = Read
  • After setting permissions for files inside the S3 bucket, select all files and copy their URLs to your clipboard.

3) Prepare Content For Video Course

Once all the video files have been uploaded to our S3 account, file permissions have been set correctly, and video file URLs have been copied to your clipboard, the next step is to create a text file containing all the information we will need to update our course content and product pages.

To do this, follow the steps below:

  • Open up NoteTab Pro text editor, create a new text file, and paste all video URLs into the text file. All videos should have the following format: https://wpmasterclasses.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/vids/0019/foldername/filename
  • Save this text file as wpversion-notes (e.g. “wp61-notes”) into the WP version folder created in C:\Business\Businesses\A - WPMasterclasses\00-Production\WPMC-0019 - BuildWP\00-videos
  • Open up the folder containing the renamed video files inside C:\Business\Businesses\A - WPMasterclasses\00-Production\WPMC-0019 - BuildWP\00-videos. Switch the folder view to “details.” Below the list of video URLs add the following details about each video:
    • Video Title – Use the format WP Version: Part X - Short Title
    • Video Description – You can obtain this by watching the first few seconds of each video or opening the video transcripts that accompany the videos.
    • Video Duration – Use the format (XX:XX) for the duration in minutes and seconds.
  • Also, add the following information to the text file (to be added to WPMasterclasses Video Production master spreadsheet):
    • Total number of new videos
    • Total duration of new videos
  • Proof all of the content (spelling, punctuation, accurate descriptions, video duration, etc.), as this description will be used in various locations (video course, product page, and video update post).
  • Save the text file when done.

4) Add Video Content To Video Course

After uploading all the video files to Amazon S3 and preparing all the information you will need to describe the content of these videos, the next step is to add this information to the video course.

To do this, follow the steps below:

  • Log into WPMasterclasses.com and select the WP Courseware > Courses menu option from the main menu to bring up the Courses screen.
  • Locate the How To Build A WordPress Site Fast course and click Edit.
  • Scroll down to the Course Builder section and expand Module 3 - New WordPress Features.
  • Right-click on the top entry and select ‘Open link in new tab’ from the menu. This will load the entry into the post editor.
  • Switch to the ‘Text’ tab, then select all the content and copy it to your clipboard.
  • Create a new text file in your text editor and paste the content from your clipboard into this file. You will use this as your template for adding new videos to the course module.
  • Close the existing course unit window after copying and pasting the item’s contents into your text file.
  • Return to the Course Builder section, scroll down to the bottom of the section and click on the “+Add Unit” button to create a new lesson page.
  • Select and copy all the contents from your text file. In the course unit post, switch to the ‘Text’ tab and paste in the content from your clipboard.
  • Switch to the Visual tab and do the following:
    • Copy and paste the video description from your ‘WPXX-Notes’ text file into the course unit’s content section. Make whatever adjustments are necessary to the body section of the content.
    • Change the highlighted section of the video’s filename in this line to match the correct location of the uploaded video (see list of video URLs copied into your text file): [s3mm type="video" files="vids/0019/wp60/wp-60-a-intro.mp4" /]
    • Copy and paste the video title into the course unit’s Title field. Make it as short as possible (this title will appear on the Course Lessons menu for users.
    • Switch the course unit post to ‘Text’ tab, then select and copy all the content to your clipboard and click ‘Add Unit’.
    • This will load another course unit black post into your window. Paste in the contents of your clipboard, make the same adjustments described above, and repeat this process until you have added all the videos to the course.
    • Drag the newly-added video lessons into their correct positions on the Course Builder module section to arrange course lessons so that newer videos display at the top of the course module.
    • Click the Update button when done to save your course settings.
    • Click on the View Course link at the top of the page to bring up the video course module as users will see it.
    • Click on each of the new video lessons and check that the correct video has been added and plays fine. If you spot any errors (i.e. wrong video, video not playing, typos in content, etc.), fix these by editing the course units and resaving, then test again.

5) Updating Video Course Product Page

After adding the videos to the course, the next step is to update the product page with information about the additional videos.

To do this, follow the steps below:

  • While logged into WPMasterclasses.com, navigate to the video course page (How to Build A WordPress Site Fast) and click on the Edit product link in the WordPress admin dashboard menu to edit the product page.
  • Copy all of the video description information from the “WPXX-Notes” file to your clipboard.
  • Scroll down to the ‘Module 3 – New WordPress Features & Updates’ section of the page and paste in the video description list from your clipboard.
  • Make sure the content is formatted correctly:
    • WordPress – Version X.X – Add an H4 heading tag
    • Titles – Bold
  • Proof content and formatting.
  • Scroll down to the Course Duration and Video Lessons fields. Update these fields with the additional number of videos and new total duration (hours and minutes).
    • Notes: Calculate video course duration by dividing the total minutes by 60 (to get the hours), then multiplying the whole integer by 60 and subtracting this number from the total to get the minutes. For example, 397 minutes = (397/60=6.61 = 6 hours. 6 x 60 = 360. 397-360 = 37 minutes. Total video course duration = 6 hours, 37 minutes).
    • You can get the total number of minutes from the video course production spreadsheet after completing the next step below.
  • Save to update the product page with the new information.
  • Click on the View Product link and open the link in a new tab to visit the product page. Perform a visual check to make sure that everything looks ok, i.e.:
    • Video content
    • Updated number of video lessons
    • Updated course duration

6) Update Video Course Production Documentation

After updating the video course and product page, the next step is to update the number of videos and video duration in the video course production documentation so we have an accurate inventory of the site’s content.

To do this, follow the steps below:

  • Open the Video Course Production Documentation spreadsheet.
  • Scroll to Row 21 (WPMC-0019).
  • Add the number of new videos to the number shown in the Lessons cell (Column G).
  • Add the additional number of minutes to the number shown in the Durations cell (Column H).
  • Scroll to the top of the spreadsheet. Note the following (you will need these numbers for the next step below):
    • Column G, Row 1 = New total number of video lessons.
    • Column Z, Row 1 = New total number of hours of video content.
  • Save the spreadsheet.

7) Update Video Counters

After updating the product page, the next step is to update the number of “Video Lessons” and “Hours of video” details on the home page and the ‘All Membership Access’ product page.

To do this, follow the steps below:

  • While logged into WPMasterclasses.com, click on the logo on the top left corner of the site to visit the home page.
  • Click on the Edit with WPBakery Page Builder link in the dashboard admin menu.
  • Scroll down to the Pie Charts. Edit the following:
    • Video Lessons – Click Edit Pie Chart and update the number of video lessons with the number shown in Column G, Row 1 of the Video Course Production Documentation spreadsheet. Click Save to update the pie chart.
    • Hours of video – Click Edit Pie Chart and update the number of video hours (whole integers only) with the number shown in Column Z, Row 1 of the Video Course Production Documentation spreadsheet. Click Save to update the pie chart then Close to exit the edit screen.
    • Click Update when done to save your new page contents.
  • Repeat the above process to update the pie charts on the All Access Pass Membership product page.

8) Update The Video Updates Log Page

After updating the video counters on the home page and the ‘All Membership Access’ product page, the last step is to add an entry about the newly-added videos to the content to the Video Updates Log page of this site.

To do this, follow the steps below:

  • While logged into WPMasterclasses.com, go to the Video Updates Log page and click on the Edit Page link to edit the page.
  • The easiest way to create a new entry for this page is to select and copy an existing entry from this page (preferably one where updates were made to the same course).
  • Paste this at the top of the content. Update the date and information (i.e. number of videos added and video topic).
  • Update the page to save the new content.
  • Click on the View Page link to inspect the page and make sure that all the information is correct.

This completes the update tasks for new WordPress version release videos on WPMasterclasses.com.

The last step is to create a new post about the updated WordPress version on WPTrainingManual.com.

2 – Create A New WordPress Release Post On WPTrainingManual.com

Create a post for every new major WordPress version release and publish it under the WordPress Updates section of WPTrainingManual.com.

1) Content Planning & Research 

  • Use the following sources to perform content research for the new post:
  • Create a new folder in your hard drive called wp-xx (where xx=version number. For example, WordPress 6.0 = wp-60) inside this directory: C:\Business\Businesses\A - WPTrainingManual\Content\Updates.
  • Right-click and save any new version release images and videos to be used in the post content to the newly-created folder.
  • In Amazon S3, create a new folder inside the wp-versions bucket located here https://wptrainingmanual.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/elite/tut/wp-versions/. Name the bucket wp-xx (where xx=version number. For example, WordPress 6.0 = wp-60).
  • Upload media content to be used in the post to this bucket. Set the correct permissions, then select all file URLs and copy these to your clipboard.
  • Open the text file created earlier containing notes about the new version and paste the file URLs from your clipboard into the text file. Save the file.

2) Create A Featured Image

Each new version release post requires a featured image with the new version number.

To do this, follow the steps below:

  • Launch Photoshop and open the file WPTM-VideoUpdates.psd in this folder: C:\Business\Businesses\A - WPTrainingManual\Images\FeaturedImages-WPUpdates
  • Edit the text layer and add the correct version number to the slide.
  • Name the file wpxx (where xx=version number without periods or dashes. For example, WordPress 6.0 = wp60) and save the image file to the same folder.
  • Upload this image as the Featured Image of the post (see next section).

3) Create A New Post In WordPress

The easiest way to create a new post for WordPress version updates is to duplicate an existing post, keep the post content structure intact and edit the content to match the new version number.

To do this, follow the steps below:

  • Log into WPTrainingManual.com. From the WordPress Dashboard, select Posts > All Posts and then filter the table of posts by Category > WordPress Updates.
  • Hover over an existing post entry and click Clone to duplicate the post.
  • Click Edit to open the duplicate post in the WordPress Editor.
  • Edit the post as follows:
    • Change the Post Title
    • Change the Post Slug
    • Change the Post Tags
    • Upload the Featured Image created in the previous step.
    • Update the Post Content.
    • Add all media files saved earlier to the Post Content.
    • Add links from the post to relevant tutorials (e.g. if the post mentions a new feature of the WordPress Block Editor, then link the content to the WordPress Block Editor tutorial).
    • Fix the post’s meta description.
    • Save and publish the post.
  • After publishing the post, visit the WordPress Updates section and make sure that the new entry displays correctly in the grid list, then click through and check to make sure that all the post content is ok.
  • Promote the post.

===  FINISH EXAMPLE DOCUMENTATION  ===

Creating Hands-Free Step-By-Step Documentation: Benefits & Challenges

The above example illustrates the kind of basic documentation your business should aim to create before handing the responsibility for performing the task to someone else, whether in-house or outsourced.

In addition to text instructions, you can add screenshots, videos, etc. to the above documentation and publish it as an online tutorial inside a private or password-protected area of your site (e.g. give staff-only access to the training and documentation).

After documenting the above steps, make sure that the process can be run repeatedly to deliver consistent results, and periodically review and update the content.

info

Creating detailed documented procedures helps you to see what challenges you will need to address when choosing to outsource the task.

With the above, for example, some of the challenges to work out before outsourcing the task include:

  • Storing media files, notes, content production logs, etc. on a hard drive: In terms of document storage, it would probably be better to move these to the cloud and use collaborative/shared applications with separate user logins.
  • Access to tools and applications and competency in using these: The above process requires using licensed tools like Photoshop and S3 Browser, having basic skills in Photoshop, WordPress, etc., and having admin access to your website in order to perform certain functions.
  • Managing/sharing logins and passwords. For services that require access to credentials (e.g. Amazon S3), it’s important to set things up so that the security of important business accounts is never compromised.
  • Workflow processes. It’s important to work out beforehand how processes fit into your overall workflow.
  • Related processes and procedures also need documentation. Processes often involve additional or related processes and subprocesses, and these also need to be documented. For example, the last task in our example (“Promote the post”) is a whole separate process in itself, as documented in our Content Promotion training module.

Documenting Procedures: Final Thoughts

Creating detailed documented procedures can be very time-consuming but it’s vitally important for the sustainability, growth, and long-term success of your business.

Hopefully, you can see from the above that documenting procedures allows your business to:

  • Create “hands-free” step-by-step documentation that can be used to train new team members and outsource work effectively,
  • Track and measure the progress of its content strategy.
  • Improve content management practices.

Documenting Procedures – FAQs

Here are frequently asked questions about documenting procedures:

What is the purpose of documenting procedures?

Documenting procedures helps standardize practices, ensures consistency in operations, and facilitates training and compliance. It serves as a reference tool that can guide current and future actions within an organization.

What should be included in a documented procedure?

A documented procedure should include the purpose of the procedure, scope of where and when it applies, detailed step-by-step instructions, roles and responsibilities, required resources, and safety or compliance considerations.

How detailed should a procedure be?

The level of detail should be sufficient to enable a person with general knowledge of the field to perform the procedure without prior experience. This means including all necessary steps and avoiding assumptions about the user’s knowledge.

Who is responsible for creating procedures?

Typically, the responsibility for creating procedures lies with subject matter experts and managers who oversee the specific processes. It is crucial that those who are intimately familiar with the tasks write the procedures to ensure accuracy and completeness.

How often should procedures be updated?

Procedures should be reviewed and updated regularly to reflect changes in technology, compliance requirements, and operational practices. A good rule of thumb is to review procedures annually, but updates may be needed more frequently depending on the pace of change.

What is the difference between a policy, a process, and a procedure?

A policy outlines the rules or guidelines under which a company operates. A process is the highest level description of a broad task that may involve multiple steps. A procedure is a specific, detailed series of actions that are followed to comply with the policy or to complete a component of the process.

How should documented procedures be formatted?

Documented procedures should be clearly formatted with headings, subheadings, bullet points, and numbered steps to make them easy to follow. Visual aids like diagrams, flowcharts, and screenshots can also be helpful, particularly for complex tasks.

What are the best practices for maintaining procedure documentation?

Best practices include regularly reviewing and updating documentation, ensuring accessibility to all who need it, maintaining clear version control, and getting feedback from users to improve the clarity and effectiveness of the documents.

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Image: Binders

Managing Your Affiliate Content

Learn how to manage your affiliate marketing content and affiliate links effectively to boost your affiliate earnings.

How To Manage Your Affiliate Marketing Content

Learn how to manage your affiliate marketing content and affiliate links effectively to boost your affiliate earnings.

Affiliate marketing - illustration inside laptop imageWhile there is an abundance of information online about affiliate marketing, much of it is focused on how to succeed as an affiliate promoting products and services, not on how to manage your affiliate marketing content.

Hence, affiliate marketing content management is a topic that is seldom discussed on internet marketing blogs. It is also typically overlooked by companies offering an affiliate or referral program, and generally ignored by providers of affiliate link management tools and software solutions.

In this article, we’ll briefly touch on what affiliate marketing is, discuss the challenges of managing your affiliate links and your affiliate marketing content, and show you how to build a simple affiliate link management tracking system for your digital presence to address some of these challenges.

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What Is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is essentially earning commissions from referrals that lead to the sales of products or services of other businesses.

In a nutshell, here’s how affiliate marketing works:

Let’s say that XYZ company offers an affiliate program.

Typically, you can see if a company offers an affiliate program by looking for a link on the site’s footer or menu (e.g.”Affiliates”, “Referral Program”, etc.)

Affiliate Program link on web site footer.
Look for Affiliate Program links on website menus and footers.

When you apply to become an affiliate partner of XYZ company, if approved, you will be given a special link that includes your unique affiliate ID.

Affiliate URL with unique affiliate ID.
An example of an affiliate URL with a unique affiliate ID.

You then use this affiliate link to promote XYZ company’s products or services.

You can promote XYZ company using affiliate links in a number of ways. For example, by embedding links into your web content, content in downloadable reports, eBooks, etc., or using methods like display banners, video marketing, email marketing, etc.

Many companies also provide creatives (e.g. banners, text links, etc.) that you can use on your site, or copy and paste into emails, etc.

When a referred user clicks on your affiliate link, a cookie is placed on their web browser for a certain period of time (called the ‘cookie duration’).

XYZ company then tracks all sales and referrals made via your link and pays you affiliate commissions based on the cookie information.

Typically, companies with an affiliate program will provide a private login area where affiliates can view and edit their account details, access referral links, view referral stats, commission earnings, payout reports, download creatives, and more.

Affiliate area - statistics screen
An affiliate area lets you check your stats, referrals, payouts, and more.

So, that’s basically how affiliate marketing works.

info

Covering affiliate marketing as a method of generating income online is beyond the scope of this course.

If you are interested in learning how to use affiliate marketing to monetize your website or blog, there are many affiliate marketing courses and articles available online that you can refer to.

Also, if you are interested in running an affiliate program, there are many affiliate management software tools and services you can check out.

Note: Affiliate management software tools and services are not the same things as what we are discussing in this lesson. This lesson is about managing your affiliate marketing content and affiliate links, whereas most tools and services are designed for running an affiliate program and managing your affiliates.

The Challenges Of Managing Affiliate Content

While affiliate marketing is one of the fastest and easiest ways to start an online business and generate income online with no money and no products of your own, it also presents a number of challenges.

Let’s look at the main challenges of affiliate marketing from a content management perspective.

Affiliate Marketing And Your Content Strategy

If you plan to use affiliate marketing as part of your site’s monetization strategy, you will be working with affiliate links and affiliate marketing content.

As with all content, it’s essential to understand how your affiliate marketing content fits into your content strategy, content plan, content-linking management practices, and other content-related processes (i.e. production, promotion, and management).

Keeping in mind that your content strategy reflects the core values of your business, what does your strategy say about creating monetized content using affiliate marketing?

For example:

  • Will you only include or review products or services in your content that you can earn money from as an affiliate, or will you link to products and services that provide value to your audience regardless of whether or not the companies being linked to offer an affiliate program?
  • If you link to companies that offer an affiliate program, will you still promote their products or services and link to their website even if your affiliate application gets rejected?
  • Will you give prominence in your content to products or services containing affiliate links (e.g. will they feature higher in a list)?
  • If your content strategy allows guest posts or articles from external writers, will you allow the writers to insert their affiliate links into the content?
  • How will your business, site, and content comply with all the laws and regulations governing affiliate marketing, and individual company policies for promoting their products and services as an affiliate?
  • Also, some audience groups regard the presence of affiliate links as making the content seem biased (e.g. product reviews). What does your content strategy say about this?
Affiliate disclosure statements.
If you plan to monetize your content with affiliate marketing, make sure to comply with all legal requirements and add all the necessary affiliate disclosures.

Let’s look at the challenges of managing affiliate marketing content in other content-related areas.

Affiliate Marketing And Content Planning

Let’s say that you plan to create a monetized article based on reviewing the top 5 products in the XYZ niche.

After researching the topic, you find that a number of companies selling products in that niche offer an affiliate program.

Although you may be approved right away, many companies have a manual review process before they will approve new affiliates.

Affiliate application is being reviewed.
Many companies will review your application before deciding whether to accept you as an affiliate partner.

Companies can also reject your affiliate application for a number of reasons (e.g. maybe your site hasn’t launched yet or is too new, or doesn’t get enough traffic, or your niche/content isn’t aligned with their marketing or branding, etc.)

Affiliate application denied
It happens!

You have no control over these companies’ approval decisions or any of their business processes, so waiting several days or even weeks to find out whether you have been approved or not can impact your content planning.

For example, will your content team wait until you know whether a company has approved or rejected you as an affiliate before doing any further research, or will they invest time into planning, researching, and scheduling the content for production, and deal with things later?

And how will the above work if you plan to outsource your content creation?

Also, what does your content plan say about using creatives supplied by the company you are promoting as an affiliate?

For example, what if a company supplies ready-made, copy-and-paste affiliate banners but the dimensions or content are not suitable for your needs?

Will you create your own banners, edit the supplied banners using image editing software, ask the company to create new banners for you, rework your content around not using banners, or choose some other option?

Finally, what does your content plan say about using affiliate links in your content?

Will you add the affiliate links as supplied (which can sometimes be very long and ugly-looking) or use a link-shortening or link-cloaking tool or service to make your links look nicer, disguise the fact that they are affiliate links, or protect your affiliate links from being hijacked?*

* Affiliate Link Hijacking is when someone completely bypasses an affiliate’s link (usually because the full affiliate link is displayed), either by manually typing in the link’s URL into a web browser web and leaving out the part of the link containing the affiliate’s id, or replacing it with their own affiliate id. This results in the affiliate not earning a commission.

Affiliate Marketing And Content Production

Sticking with our “Top 5 XYZ products” example, let’s say that you apply to become an affiliate of all the products you plan to cover in your article and decide to go ahead and create the article before knowing whether you have been approved as an affiliate or not.

The article is published and a few days later you are informed by three out of the five companies whose products you have already reviewed in your article that your affiliate application has been denied.

What do you do with the article now? Do you…

  • Leave the content in the article as is and continue promoting the companies that rejected your application?
  • Remove the content from your article and look for new companies to promote so you can replace the deleted section?
  • Reorganize your list and move monetized content further up the page (as discussed earlier in the section on content strategy)?

Affiliate Marketing And Content Promotion

Affiliate marketing is fundamentally all about promoting other people’s products or services. After all, that’s how you earn affiliate commissions.

This has its own challenges.

For example, a company may supply you with ready-made affiliate banners or other creatives (e.g. email sequences, rebrandable reports, etc.) and declare these to be proven high-converters.

You then add them to your site and get no sales.

Has your business implemented effective content tracking methods and all the other systems and processes described in the content promotion module?

If not, how will you fix this issue, measure the performance of your affiliate content, or improve your results using any other affiliate program?

This brings us to the next content-related area of challenges.

Affiliate Marketing And Content Management

Suppose you decide to start a “review” blog promoting products and services in a profitable niche.

After doing some research, you discover that there are many great products you can review and promote as an affiliate and begin applying to all of their affiliate programs.

After several months of working hard to create original content, your blog has dozens of great product review articles monetized with affiliate links.

Then, you begin to notice things like the following happening on your site:

  • Links point to error pages – products have been removed or discontinued from being sold.
  • Product prices have changed – The product price has changed on the destination site. Your reviews have different pricing than the actual product price.
  • Product information is different – Product features and options that you promoted as being free are now premium options or part of a paid plan.
  • Bonuses are no longer being offered – Your review mentioned a whole bunch of great bonuses that were included with the product, but the product vendor has removed these from their sales page.
  • Product/Company names are different – The company offering the product has been acquired by another company and decided to rename or rebrand the product.
  • Product demo videos don’t work – The company has removed the YouTube video you added to your product review, so the video no longer shows.
  • Copy-paste banners link to a “buy this domain” page – The company has gone out of business and its domain name has expired.

Then, to make matters worse, because you have applied to so many different affiliate programs, working out which affiliate platforms manage which programs, what login details go with which platform, and which issues require fixing becomes overwhelming and time-consuming.

Currently the product that you were looking for is not able to be sold.
Uh oh…are your affiliate links sending visitors to pages like this?

As you can see, there are so many things that can go wrong with your affiliate marketing content, all of which affect your potential earnings.

As you become a more experienced affiliate marketer, you begin to realize that almost everything about affiliate marketing is outside of your control.

You have no control over the companies whose products or services you are promoting, or what they do.

Many companies that offer an affiliate program simply carry on doing their business and do not inform their affiliates about changes that can affect their affiliate campaigns, their content, and their links.

So, affiliate marketers promoting their products typically only find out that something is wrong with their affiliate content weeks or months after these events have taken place, resulting in many opportunities for earning commissions being missed.

This problem is compounded if you don’t have the systems in place (that we cover extensively in this course) to manage your content.

So, let’s begin by showing you how to develop…

A Simple System To Start Managing Your Affiliate Content

For this section, we’ll use as an example a simple system I built to manage the affiliate content and affiliate links on this website.

You may have already noticed that this course is 100% free.

As my vision is to provide high-quality information on ways to manage content effectively to as many people as possible, I decided not to create a paid membership site, but to make this course freely available to everyone.

To meet the costs of running this website and keeping it updated with regular content, I decided to monetize this website and some of the course content using methods like advertising, donations, and affiliate marketing.

As part of this site’s content strategy, the course recommends many great products, services, and resources, many of which I use and would recommend even if there was no affiliate incentive involved.

So, once we defined affiliate marketing as one of the content promotion methods used to grow and sustain this website, the next step was to work out how to go about it.

I know from years of experience that:

  1. Many affiliate programs require applications to be manually reviewed and approved,
  2. Many affiliate program managers prefer reviewing existing websites (i.e. not ‘under construction’) that are already generating traffic before approving affiliate applications,
  3. Applicants have a stronger chance of being approved as an affiliate if they can actually  provide a link to a page where the product is already being promoted, and
  4. Companies use different affiliate program management platforms, so it’s important to be able to keep track of many different dashboards, logins, etc.

The above raised the following challenges for managing affiliate links and affiliate content:

  1. How do we keep track of all the products and services mentioned in this site? This course contains over 100+ lessons and mentions hundreds of products, services, tools, and resources.
  2. Which products and services offer affiliate programs and which don’t?
  3. Which affiliate platforms are the companies mentioned in this course using to manage their affiliates?
  4. How do we keep track of which affiliate programs we’ve applied for, and whether we’ve been approved or rejected for these programs?

Given the above, here’s the plan used for this website:

  1. I wrote all of the initial course content before launching the website,
  2. As the course content was being written, I also created a spreadsheet listing all of the products, services, tools, and resources mentioned in the course content that offer an affiliate program but held off applying to these until after launching the site,
  3. For products and services mentioned in this course that offer an affiliate program, I used a link redirection tool to initially point the links directly to the product or service page. This makes it easier to replace links used throughout the course content once I got approved by the affiliate program (with the programs that rejected my application, there was no need to change the links, as they were already pointing to the product or service).
  4. After launching the site, I then went through the spreadsheet and began to systematically apply to all of the affiliate programs listed. To make the process easier and faster, I also created a generic “copy, paste, and edit” text template describing who we are, what the site is about, and how the site plans to promote the product or service (including the URL of the course lesson where we are already promoting it).

Affiliate Content Management Spreadsheet

To keep track of all the affiliate program applications, links, platforms, logins, etc., I created a spreadsheet with the following columns:

  • Product/Service – The affiliate product or service being promoted.
  • Description – A brief description of the product or service, also mentioning whether it is a plugin, SaaS, etc.
  • Affiliate Registration – The URL of the company’s affiliate program sign-up form.
  • Applied? – An “x” in this cell lets me know that I have applied for the affiliate program.
  • Approved? – Type “y” into this cell if approved for the affiliate program and “n” if the application was declined or rejected.
  • Affiliate Link Cloaked – The link used in the content created with a link-redirection tool.
  • Direct Link – The direct URL to the product or service.
  • Aff Link – The “raw” affiliate link supplied by the affiliate platform.
  • Where Used – The URL(s) of the post or page where the product or service is mentioned.
  • Network Dashboard – The URL of the affiliate platform dashboard where I can check stats, referrals, payouts, etc.
  • Notes – Enter any notes or comments here (e.g. “affiliate program temporarily on hold,” reason given for declining my application, etc.).
  • Login – The affiliate login username or email address.
  • Password – The affiliate login password.
  • Username – This is an additional field used if the affiliate login form accepts both an email address and a username.

In addition to the above columns, I also used color coding to make the management process using the spreadsheet easier:

  • Green – Affiliate program application accepted. Affiliate link replaced in affiliate link redirection tool.
  • Yellow – Affiliate application submitted – application pending review and approval.
  • White – Haven’t applied yet to the affiliate program. This can also signify that the affiliate program is currently unavailable. If so, this is recorded in the “Notes” column.
  • Red – Application initially rejected or declined. This can also signify that the affiliate program has permanently closed down.
Affiliate Content Management Spreadsheet
Use a spreadsheet to keep track of your affiliate program application process.

Notes:

  • There are various reasons why applications get declined or rejected. Sometimes it’s because the site is too new and hasn’t generated sufficient traffic yet. If a company rejects or declines my application, I will wait a little while and then apply again for their affiliate program or contact their affiliate manager via email.
  • Some affiliate platforms won’t allow you to apply for other programs until your site produces results for the existing programs you are promoting.

Managing Your Affiliate Links

Using a spreadsheet to keep track of all your affiliate programs with a password management tool and a link tracking tool may be all you need to manage your affiliate links.

At least, you will have a master document for your records.

From here, you can then access all of the various affiliate management platforms that companies use to run their affiliate programs from.

As well as providing you with access to your affiliate account, affiliate links, marketing creatives, and displaying your referral stats and earnings, many platforms also provide additional tools and useful reports, such as status updates on your applications, merchants, etc.

Shareasale dashboard - merchant status.
Shareasale provides reports and merchant status notifications.

Managing Your Affiliate Content

Once you have implemented the above system for managing your affiliate programs and affiliate links, use the content management lessons described in this course to help you manage your affiliate marketing content.

This is important because as was mentioned earlier, many of the companies you will be promoting as an affiliate will not keep you informed of changes they make in their business that can impact your earnings.

For example, having a content tracking system, good content link management practices, and doing regular content reviews will help you detect and address issues like noticing significant or sudden drops in affiliate revenue, links to error pages, outdated creatives, etc.

Additionally, having good content organization and content documentation systems in addition to streamlined content planning, content production, and content promotion processes can help you take advantage of special affiliate promotions that could give you a significant boost in affiliate earnings.

For example, many companies run special affiliate promotions during major online sales events like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, etc.

These events usually have very small windows of opportunity and if your business lacks sound content management systems and organization, these opportunities will come and go before you can even act on them.

With an effective content management system in place, your business can capitalize on these events by scheduling content to be created ahead of time in your content calendar (e.g. blog and social media posts) and published at a later date in your CMS, swapping out banners and creatives in your media storage services, planning email marketing campaigns, etc.

Managing Affiliate Content – FAQs

Here are frequently asked questions about managing affiliate content:

What is affiliate content management?

Affiliate content management involves organizing, optimizing, and tracking content related to affiliate marketing partnerships.

What types of content are managed in affiliate marketing?

Content can include product reviews, blog posts, social media updates, email newsletters, and banners that promote affiliate products or services.

How is affiliate content typically created?

Content can be created in-house by the affiliate marketer or outsourced to content creators such as bloggers, influencers, or freelance writers.

What are the key components of effective affiliate content management?

Key components include content planning, creation, optimization for SEO, tracking performance metrics, and ongoing content updates.

How do affiliate marketers optimize content for conversions?

Marketers optimize content by incorporating persuasive calls-to-action, using engaging visuals, providing valuable information, and ensuring seamless user experiences.

What tools are used for managing affiliate content?

Tools such as content management systems (CMS), affiliate tracking software, keyword research tools, analytics platforms, and email marketing software are commonly used.

How do affiliate marketers ensure compliance with affiliate program terms?

Marketers ensure compliance by reviewing and adhering to program terms, properly disclosing affiliate relationships, and avoiding prohibited promotional methods.

What are the best practices for updating affiliate content?

Best practices include regularly reviewing content for accuracy and relevance, updating product information, refreshing visuals, and optimizing for current SEO trends.

How do affiliate marketers measure the success of their content?

Marketers measure success through key performance indicators (KPIs) such as click-through rates, conversion rates, revenue generated, and return on investment (ROI).

What are the challenges in managing affiliate content?

Challenges include maintaining content quality, staying updated with program policies, managing multiple affiliate partnerships, and adapting to algorithm changes in search engines and social media platforms.

Summary

Affiliate marketing provides a great opportunity to monetize your content but it also presents many challenges for managing your affiliate content and affiliate links.

Sound content management can help you capitalize on affiliate marketing opportunities to boost your online revenue.

If your content strategy includes affiliate marketing as a method of promotion, then it’s important to implement good systems for managing your affiliate links and affiliate content.

Action Step

  • Follow the recommendations in this lesson to create a master document listing all of your affiliate programs, links, logins, etc., and add this to your content documentation.

Resources

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Image: Affiliate Marketing

What Effective Content Management Looks Like

Learn what effective content management looks like and how it can help to address most of the content-related problems in your business.

What Effective Content Management Looks Like

Here is a picture of what effective content management looks like and how it can help to address most of the content-related problems in your business.

Effective Content Management. Stock Photo: Man in office attire looking at laptop while celebrating with hands in the air and feet on the desk.In this article, we show you how the right picture of what an effective content management framework looks like can help you fix and eliminate most of the content-related problems in your business.

Note: This article is part of our Content Troubleshooting Guide.

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Is Your Content Creating Discontent?

Is there a style of management that is ideally suited for managing content effectively in your business?

For example, in the participative style of management (also called the democratic leadership style), feedback, input, and participation from staff are sought in the decision-making process and team members/staff generally try and solve any issues themselves.

Would a participative style of management, then, lead to effective content management?

Consider this scenario:

Let’s say that you notice several articles on your company’s blog are addressing the same or a similar topic, and hence competing with each other for keyword ranking and traffic.

A participative (i.e. democratic-style) manager would probably respond by turning to the editor and saying something like: “you’re the editor…what do you suggest we do? How would you fix this?”

In most situations, encouraging staff members to come up with the solution to a problem by working it out amongst themselves is a great approach and typically works. Staff members are encouraged to think for themselves; they feel empowered when asked for their input; they feel valued for their contribution, and they also feel recognized for their expertise.

The manager also feels and looks good. The participative style of management allows them to quickly lob any issues back over the net and into their team’s court by posing problems as questions for the team to resolve, and this makes them one of “the good guys.”

Everyone feels good and everyone values each other.

That’s great, except for the fact that this style of leadership, which is used across many industries and organizations, doesn’t really help to solve any fundamental issues of content management caused by a lack of strategic planning and the failure to implement effective systems and processes.

For example, if your content isn’t “meeting all the metrics,” the issues may not be related to your team members’ skills, expertise, technical abilities, or their motivation, enthusiasm, and willingness to contribute and participate in helping the business succeed, but to a lack of planning and systems.

To understand this better, let’s go back to the example where you have found several articles essentially covering the same topic, hence potentially competing with each other for rankings and traffic, and let’s assume that the manager has asked the editor to come up with a solution.

For this discussion, let’s imagine that there are three articles involved:

  1. Article “A” is an old post written by a guest contributor back in the day when the company couldn’t afford its own team of staff writers. It’s a well-written post with a catchy title and a decent number of backlinks, and it gets a reasonable amount of traffic each month.
  2. Article “B” is about two years old and written by a staff writer who no longer works with the company. This post is also well-written, with a keyword-optimized post title. This article covers the topic in detail, has a decent number of backlinks, and gets reasonable monthly traffic.
  3. Article “C” is the most recent of all three articles. It was written by the current full-time writer and complies fully with Google’s latest content quality guidelines. As the article was only recently published, however, it’s kind of hard to assess how well it is performing in terms of search traffic and backlinks…we’ll have to wait and see!

Now, suppose that the editor goes back to their desk, reads through each article, and makes the decision to:

  • Rewrite article “A” and remove some of the content that doesn’t fit with the new article’s approach or angle,
  • Redirect article “B” to the newer article “C” (even though they are not exactly covering the same topics), then delete article “B”, and
  • Add links to related content in article “A” and article “C”.

Should the editor have done this?

The answer is … it depends!

Making decisions about what to do with existing content is not that simple.

For example, does the editor know how the articles were performing for certain keywords? What happens if you change the content in the article and traffic suddenly drops?

You wouldn’t know this unless there is a system in place to track changes to the content and monitor its performance before deciding to edit it.

If the newly-edited article doesn’t perform as well as was hoped, who is tracking which elements of the content were changed? Can the editor compare different versions of the article and restore it to how it was before being edited?

If you edit an article and remove certain content, how do you know that the deleted content wasn’t required to be there (e.g. through some form of paid or reciprocal content exchange or agreement?)

Screenshot of Slack conversation discussing removal of content from a blog post.
What happens when you remove content from an article that was supposed to be there through some prior agreement?

If you delete an article, what happens to the content that was currently linking to it? What will your site visitors experience when they click on links pointing to articles that no longer exist?

Also…what if the old article (containing outdated, irrelevant, or obsolete information) performs better than the new article? If there is a noticeable drop in traffic, how can you tell if it’s temporary or permanent and how long will you wait to find this out? How are you monitoring all this?

As you can see, unless the editor is also responsible for putting systems in place to track SEO and content performance, these are not necessarily editorial decisions.

But there are other areas to consider besides focusing only on SEO.

For example…why were there three articles covering similar topics, all potentially competing for the same keywords and traffic? Why wasn’t this picked up during the content planning stage?

And what criteria is the editor using to prioritize whether to keep, update, fix, or completely rewrite content in existing articles or make decisions on articles and blog posts with similar content? Who established those criteria and did they take into account how their decisions will impact other areas of the business?

Clearly, making the content production team responsible for “fixing” content-related issues is not necessarily the best approach, as it doesn’t address the cause of the issues.

Hence a participative style of management may not be “fixing” anything, especially if the same content-related problems keep occurring.

In other words, if your content is not delivering expected or hoped-for results (i.e. “meeting all the metrics”), the issue most likely has nothing to do with management styles or the lack of skills or expertise of team members, but with the fact that your organization may not have fully grasped the difference between the three levels of decision-making in a business as explained in the Content Management Mindset lesson.

So, let’s recap this concept briefly.

What Effective Content Management Looks Like

Take a look at the diagram below. It may look simplistic, but when you truly understand what it means, you will be able to identify, troubleshoot, and find solutions to fix almost all of the content-related problems in your business.

Every business has these three levels of decision-making:

Chart: The three levels of decision-making in a business.
Every business has three levels of business decision-making…even a one-person business!

While everyone in the business is responsible for helping the organization achieve its objectives and realize its vision, each of these levels plays a specific role in helping the business reach this outcome.

Chart: Executive, Managerial, and Tactical roles and their functions.
What each decision-making level does in an organization.

Executive-level roles are responsible for making “big-picture” decisions.

Managerial-level roles are responsible for figuring out the systems and processes that will deliver results that match the “big picture” set at the Executive level.

Tactical-level roles (also known as Technical-level roles) are responsible for following the systems and processes set at the Managerial level to achieve the results and objectives set at the Executive level.

So, what does this all mean and how can it help you troubleshoot and fix your content-related problems in areas like content planning, content production, content marketing, and content management?

Let’s take a look using an example.

Suppose your business decides to use content marketing methods like posting regular articles on its blog and social media, email marketing, paid advertising, etc. to promote itself and grow online.

Suppose too that, like many businesses, your company doesn’t have the budget to outsource every content-related role to a digital marketing agency or the financial resources to hire and build a team of content specialists to run everything in-house.

Let’s also say that your digital business setup includes the following:

  • A website with a blog.
  • Social media accounts on the main platforms.
  • An email service account.
  • A small budget to spend on content creation and advertising.
  • The people already hired to work in the business (including you).

So, this is what your business has to work with.

Next, they appoint you as their Content Manager and make you responsible for helping the business grow using “content” and getting results within your available budget and resources.

Now, let’s make things a little challenging but not so impossible that it would make you want to quit your new role.

Your content team is comprised of two other team members including you. We’ll call them Ash and Pat.

All three of you agree to share the responsibility of regularly writing and publishing content on the blog.

Pat has excellent design skills, so Pat will also look after social media.

Ash has a marketing background, so Ash will handle things like creating email campaigns, send email promotions, run newsletters, grow and maintain a list of subscribers, etc.

Your budget will be used for outsourcing your advertising campaigns to a professional agency.

Other people in your organization are also happy to offer assistance where required (e.g. reviewing content in their areas of expertise, suggesting new content topics, etc.)

Finally, you, Pat, and Ash agree to have a production team meeting once a week to discuss how the work is progressing. You also agree to meet regularly with the General Manager to provide updates and reports and to discuss any issues.

With this basic plan, you and your team begin the work of creating and publishing content.

Each week, you meet with your team. You all come up with new content ideas. You then assign article topics for Ash, Pat, and yourself and aim to get at least two new articles published every week, plus send an email roundup to your subscribers (Ash) and post social media updates (Pat).

Now, what happens if you experience issues with content production like:

  • Running out of content ideas?
  • Being unable to complete projects due to circumstances outside the control of your team?
  • Published content not performing as well as expected?

Well, if you understand the three levels of decision-making mentioned above, then you would have a starting point for troubleshooting and addressing these at the appropriate level.

For example:

Running Out Of Content Ideas

The content team (Tactical Level) is not responsible for making sure that the content production pipeline never runs dry.

The Managerial Level is responsible for creating the Content Plan and developing and implementing the systems and processes responsible for creating a self-sustaining content pipeline.

The Managerial Level, however, can’t create this content plan, unless and until the Executive Level has defined and created a Content Strategy for the business.

So, running out of content ideas is ultimately an issue that needs to be addressed at the Executive and/or Managerial Level.

tip

If your team needs new content ideas for your website, blog, or newsletter, subscribe to our FREE Infinite Content Ideas course.

Being Unable To Complete Projects Due To External Circumstances

If your articles or blog posts depend on new product features being released or services being available and there is a hold-up in product development, then the content team may have no choice but to put their projects on hold.

Again, this is not an issue that the content team (Tactical Level) is responsible for or can resolve. It has to be addressed and resolved at the Managerial Level or higher.

Published Content Not Performing Well

If your published articles or blog posts perform poorly, the issue may be your content team’s responsibility only if the editor has not provided the team with an adequately prepared content brief.

If the content brief is found to be adequate, then the problem may lie in a poorly-constructed Marketing Plan (Managerial Level) or Marketing Strategy (Executive Level).

So…why is your content team not responsible for solving any of the issues described above?

Well, if you understand the three levels of decision-making in a business, then you will see that:

Executive Level roles are responsible for setting a clear business vision and formulating a business strategy, a marketing strategy, defining an overall budget to cover the cost of hiring people to fill roles and invest in resources, etc.

Managerial Level roles are responsible for turning strategies into plans (e.g., a business plan, marketing plan, etc.) implementing documented systems and processes (e.g. for training and onboarding people into their roles, content production, content promotion, etc.), and making sure that guidelines and procedures are created for Tactical Level roles to follow (e.g. content briefs, branding and style guides, etc.)

Tactical Level roles are responsible for making sure they follow the systems and processes they are given to deliver the work as specified in the strategies, plans, and guidelines they have been given.

Think about it…

If you are asking a content writer to come up with content ideas and topics to write about so that your content pipeline doesn’t run dry, then you are effectively putting someone who doesn’t have the bigger picture of your business (i.e the business vision) in charge of defining your content strategy and creating your content plan.

It is only inevitable that this will lead to the issues described above (and those listed in the Content Troubleshooting Guide).

Setting Tactical-Level KPIs

If the Executive and the Managerial level roles have delivered what is truly required of them, then tactical-level roles like editors, content writers, media creators, etc. can simply plug into existing systems, follow established processes and procedures set out in documented strategies, plans, and guidelines, and deliver work to the standards and results expected by the business to meet its overall goals and objectives.

In this scenario, then, setting realistic and fair KPIs and benchmarks may include the following:

  1. Content Production – Is the business setting realistic workload targets and quotas? Are these being met and delivered on time?
  2. Work Quality – Is the work delivered meeting their brief? Are documented guidelines, procedures, and specifications being followed?
  3. Role Competency – How much of the completed work is being performed by the person responsible for that role? (e.g. with content writers, is the writer doing most of the work and submitting a draft that requires only editorial refining to advance to 2nd and final drafts, or do other people have to get involved and assume the writer’s workload to help get their content over the line?)
  4. Team Participation – Are team members willing to participate and contribute ideas and suggestions for improving processes, and take on additional tasks and responsibilities?

If executive and management-level roles do not provide tactical-level roles what is required, however, then assessing performance can end up being skewed, unrealistic, or unfair.

For example, content writers should NOT be penalized or assessed unfairly if:

  • Targets set by management are unrealistic.
  • Writers are expected to deliver X articles per week but there are regular holdups in product or business development so their articles can’t be completed on time.
  • There is no new content in the pipeline (as discussed, writers don’t create the content plan to meet strategic objectives, management is responsible for delivering this)
  • Writers are not given a well-researched and detailed content brief outlining objectives, specifications, or requirements.
  • Timely delivery needs additional roles involved in the content creation process (e.g. supplying testing data, videos, technical diagrams, code samples, performing technical checks, etc.) and these aren’t made available or supplied in a timely manner.
  • Writers have been given too many additional responsibilities other than writing because there are not enough resources available in the company to handle those.
  • There are other performance issues directly related to a lack of clear communication, documented guidelines, training, essential tools, resources, etc.
  • There are other factors outside the writer’s control.

Summary

Understanding the three levels of decision-making in a business will help you to identify, troubleshoot, and find solutions to fix almost all content-related problems and issues in your business.

Action Steps

Review this lesson: Content Management Mindset

Resources

References

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Image: Successful Business

Linking Content On Multiple Web Pages

How do you interlink content across many web pages when the content on those pages hasn’t even been written yet? Here’s how…

Linking Content On Multiple Web Pages

How do you interlink content across many web pages when the content on those pages hasn’t even been written yet? This article provides helpful content-linking planning tips for larger content projects.

Laptop with network image - Creating Interlinked ContentContent linking is not only good for SEO, it’s also what makes the World Wide Web possible.

While interlinking topic-related content in existing web pages is easy to do, how do you link to content that has not been created yet?

This creates challenges when planning larger content projects with fully interlinked content such as an article series or an online course.

Planning a site like ContentManagementCourse.com is a great example of how challenging this can be. This site launched with over 100 fully interlinked course lessons.

In this article, we show you step-by-step how we created the course content for this site as a practical example of interlinking content across many pages.

ContentManagementCourse.com Content Planning Process

Here’s the planning process we used to create the content for ContentManagementCourse.com:

Step 1 – Set Goals

Our goal is to provide a comprehensive and practical online course to help businesses learn how to manage their content more effectively.

Achieving this goal required planning several course modules with many interlinked lessons covering several content-related areas.

Step 2 – Create A Content Strategy

Based on the goals described above, we defined a content strategy for this site that included creating the following content:

  1. Site Pages – Create standard website ‘must-have’ pages (e.g. Home Page, About Us, Contact Us, Legal Pages, etc.)
  2. Course Modules – Create comprehensive course modules with fully interlinked course lessons across six categories:
  3. Email Lessons – Create a series of emails aimed at helping users to understand and apply all of the course lessons on this site.
  4. Blog – Create and publish new content that expands on the content of existing course lessons, with practical tips and additional information o help users improve their content management skills.
A chart depicting ContentManagementCourse.com's Content Strategy
The main content sections of this site. All sections contain fully interlinked content.

Once the main content sections were defined, the strategy was to implement the creation of the course content and the launch of this site into the following stages:

  1. Set up the site with ‘must-have’ navigational pages.
  2. Create all course modules and lessons with fully interlinked content prior to launching the site.
  3. Launch the site, and
  4. Continually add new content on a regular basis expanding and linking to existing course content.

Stage #2 above is the challenging part and the focus of this article. The other stages are fairly common when developing business websites (i.e. set up and launch the website, then start publishing new content).

After defining the content strategy, the next step was to plan the course content outline describing the modules, lessons, and topics covered in each of these sections.

Step 3 – Planning The Course Content Outline

A simple spreadsheet was used to plan the course content outline, with columns to classify and organize course modules and lessons, track content production, and record information about each item of content created for the site.

The spreadsheet also employed a simple color-coding scheme:

  • White (No highlight) – Lesson planned but not worked on yet.
  • Yellow – Lesson worked on but not completed yet.
  • Green – Lesson completed.
  • Purple – New lesson or blog article to be added later (the content is not required to launch the course. It can be created, published, then linked to and from the main course content afterward).
ContentManagementCourse.com - course content planning spreadsheet.
The course content planning spreadsheet for ContentManagementCourse.com.

Note: In addition to adding course content planning columns, other columns were included for additional information about each content item, so this spreadsheet can be used to perform a content audit and content reviews.

Planning the course and creating the course content outline took several weeks.

Step 4 – Developing The Course Website

Here’s a breakdown of the steps required to complete this stage:

1 – Build The Website

As explained throughout this course, one of the most effective tools for managing content is to use a Content Management System (CMS) and WordPress is the world’s most widely used CMS platform.

So, this site was built with WordPress. All the steps are documented on our free WordPress training sites for non-technical users: WPCompendium.org (free tutorials on how to build a WordPress site without coding skills) and WPTrainingManual.com (free tutorials on how to use WordPress).

2 – Put Site In Under Construction Mode

After building the site and adding basic pages (e.g. Contact Us, Legal Pages, etc.), I then installed and activated an “Under Maintenance” plugin so I could work on the content without making it public.

3 – Add Placeholder Pages For Content

This step is really important for your content linking strategy to work. Careful planning is required before building your content pages.

After setting up and configuring the website (about a week’s work), I then returned to the spreadsheet and began to add “placeholder” pages (pages without content) to the website for each content item that would need to be created.

Note: We used WordPress Posts, not WordPress Pages for our course modules and lessons.

This step was comprised of the following tasks:

After creating a placeholder post for the content as per the above, I then published the page.

The reason for publishing pages instead of keeping these unpublished (i.e. in ‘draft’ mode) was to obtain the actual URL of each course module or lesson and record this on the spreadsheet.

I then used these URLs to link to other course content later.

I repeated this process until all the ‘placeholder’ pages (100+ pages) required to launch this course were created (about a week’s work).

Step 5 – Course Content Production

After creating all the placeholders for course modules and lessons listed on the course planning spreadsheet, the process of researching and writing the course content began.

The aim of this stage was to flesh out each lesson as much as possible and worry about final editing and putting the finishing touches later, so I used the content planning spreadsheet to track content production with most of the content being worked on highlighted in yellow.

While working on the lessons, new content ideas came to mind, and I recorded these on the spreadsheet for later.

ContentManagementCourse.com - Tracking content production on the content planning spreadsheet.
Going from content planning to content production.

Writing the course content for this site took about a year.

After creating all the course content, I then went back and reviewed each lesson, making final tweaks and edits to the content, formatting, and structure, checking that the links worked, etc.

As each item was completed, I added the details to the spreadsheet and highlighted them in green.

When all the rows of the spreadsheet were green, the site was then ready to launch.

ContentManagementCourse.com - Content production tracking spreadsheet.
Tracking content production on the content planning spreadsheet. When all rows were highlighted in green, the site was ready to launch.

As you build out your content, you may discover that you need to make changes to the page URLs that you are linking to (e.g. you may need to assign the lesson to a different post category or edit the post slug).

Changing the URL of a page, however, can affect the existing links in your content. With WordPress, you can easily fix this using plugins like Better Search Replace and Redirection.

Step 6 – Launch Website

With all the initial content created and fully interlinked, the site was ready to launch.

All we needed to make the content public was to deactivate the “Under Construction” plugin. The site then immediately became “live”.

After this, we simply began to implement some basic content promotion methods like notifying the search engines (e.g. by submitting sitemaps to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, etc.) to get the pages crawled and indexed.

Step 7 – Add New Content With Links To Existing Content

The hardest part of creating a large project with extensive content interlinking is getting the content planning right and then building out all of your initial content.

Once this is done, adding new content (e.g. via the blog section) and linking it to existing pages is relatively easy, as the main content structure is already in place.

For example, this article was written after the site was launched. All the links you see on this page were easy to add as all of the content being linked to was already written.

In time, this article may also link to content that has yet to be written.

When/if this content eventually does get written, it will simply be a matter of referring to the notes in the content planning spreadsheet, editing this article, adding a link to the newly-created content, and marking the task as done (i.e. highlighting it in green on the spreadsheet ).

Summary

While linking content between existing web pages is simple and easy to do, planning how to fully interlink content on larger projects can be challenging, as it may require linking to content that hasn’t been created yet.

Here’s the strategy for addressing this challenge in a nutshell:

  1. Create and publish ‘placeholder’ pages to get all the web addresses you will link to in your content project.
  2. After obtaining the URL of all your interlinking pages, start building the content for those pages.
  3. As you build out the content on each of your ‘placeholder’ pages, link your content to other content using their page URLs.
Interlinking content strategy
Creating content placeholders allows you to build out fully interlinked content for larger projects

We hope that you have found this article useful.

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Images: Network, Web Page